Is the PR team prepped for an outbreak being traced back to your attraction? Is maintenance braced to put the site to bed for an extended period? Has the accounts department identified which recurring costs to pause?
Coronavirus-related restrictions – local lockdowns – are imposed, adjusted and lifted with little warning, and the extent of measures within each lockdown varies.
The consequences of a local lockdown on your visitor attraction are difficult to predict but, as ever, preparation is key.
In these turbulent times for the tourism industry, it’s more helpful than ever to share learnings and tips. With that in mind, we asked Mark Simpson, Head of Content at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), about the local lockdown preparations the WWT are making across their nine centres.
-
Establish regular meetings with a core action group
When we spoke, Mark was about to join one of the WWT’s National Coronavirus Planning Group weekly meetings. If you’re not already doing so, holding regular meetings with a core team is a sensible starting point for local lockdown planning.
Aim to establish an agile lockdown management structure that covers every aspect of going into – and coming out of – local lockdown, from looking after any plants to informing suppliers. “It’s about making the process as clear as possible and helping staff feel as confident as possible,” says Mark.
-
Document relevant learnings
If nothing else, the national lockdown in spring 2020 offered up valuable experience to draw on in the event of a local lockdown. Comb back through the tasks and processes your attraction went through then. What worked? What didn’t? What could be improved next time?
It may be that your attraction has already experienced an unexpected shutdown, perhaps due to extreme weather, a terrorist incident or some other crisis. What lessons can be learned from that? You can also draw on processes already in place for planned closures over longer periods, such as Christmas.
Compile these into a checklist of critical tasks, processes and personnel to have on alert.
-
Identify critical staff
Which staff are crucial to the daily operations of the visitor attraction when it’s closed to the public? These might include roles or functions in maintenance, security, comms, accounts and HR, for example.
As well as making sure everything runs smoothly throughout lockdown, staff members assigned to these roles should be able to respond quickly, confidently and efficiently to last-minute curveballs. That means there needs to be a clear decision-making structure in place to handle any crises that could arise.
-
Plan for site shutdown
Consider site security and establish processes to identify any break-ins or break-downs before they cause any lasting damage. If your visitor attraction needs to close, you might want to implement daily patrols or install a comprehensive CCTV system, remove all valuables from the premises and update site signage to inform the public of the steps you have taken.
You’ll also need to communicate your lockdown measures with the public, so make sure your website, voice mail messages, email auto-replies and on-site signs reflect your current situation.
-
Forward plan visitor-facing content
One of the first things visitors will want to know is how the local lockdown affects their plans. Can their visit still go ahead? If not, will they get a refund or be able to rebook? Will annual memberships or season tickets be extended? The answers to questions such as these should be readily available, across all relevant channels.
Longer term, the focus of content will be on keeping visitors engaged and updated. Yes, that means logistical updates – “We’ll be making sure we’ve got that checklist of channels to update and info to share,” says Mark – but he also notes that people are interested in what’s going on with the animals at the WWT’s centres, behind-the-scenes details and the day-to-day life of the staff.
“We will be trying to replicate the sort of conversations visitors would have on site,” he says. It helps if on-site staff can help create content. “Our staff are keen communicators and keen photographers, so everybody mucks in.”
-
Step up internal comms
In times of uncertainty, clear and consistent communications are vital, and keeping staff and volunteers updated – and motivated – will be a top priority.
During the national lockdown, regular email updates and weekly volunteer updates replaced face-to-face interactions at the WWT, and there was a new addition to the comms mix during the national lockdown: WhatsApp.
“WhatsApp was a big change,” says Mark. “Many individual teams set up WhatsApp groups, which may well carry on.”
WhatsApp allows for more immediate and informal group communications than newsletters and email, making it a great channel for quickly sharing shorter blasts of information, as well as replicating the sort of water-cooler chat that many colleagues miss during lockdown. If you do use WhatsApp to communicate with staff, it’s worth establishing a few dos and don’ts so colleagues don’t feel overwhelmed by reams of chatty texts.
-
Consider alternative fundraising efforts
If your attraction relies on fundraising, local lockdowns come with extra challenges. Maintaining good relationships with local and national supporters is key, and it’s likely that you’ll be almost entirely reliant on digital to keep those channels of communication open.
For the WWT, getting a local voice across on digital channels is critical. During the spring lockdown, “support from members was amazing,” says Mark. “They rallied around and donated when asked, but it hampered other opportunities. There are fewer opportunities for local businesses to be engaged when visitor centres are closed, for example.”
Key takeaways
- Draft a checklist of critical tasks, and assign a core group of staff to implement them.
- Make sure your approach to a local lockdown is agile enough to respond to the varying restrictions of each local lockdown.
- Frequent, clear communication, both external and internal, is critical. Have a content plan in place to communicate any changes to visitors and staff, and to keep visitors, staff and volunteers engaged for the duration of the local lockdown. Consider allocating more resource to digital comms.
- Conceptualise fundraising efforts that don’t rely on face-to-face interactions.
