Crisis management and the ‘new normal’ for visitor attractions
What has Covid-19 taught visitor attraction leaders about crisis management in the era of ‘unprecedented’ events?
In March 2020, visitor attractions across the UK were faced with an unimaginable decision; close, and risk going out of business? Or stay open and possibly endanger the health of visitors, staff, and even the population as a whole.
Eventually, with a nationwide lockdown, this decision was made for us. But the two or three weeks where we were contemplating and managing the shutdown of our sites were, for many of us, the most challenging weeks of our careers so far.
Planning for the unprecedented
This summer, I interviewed ten visitor attraction managers from across the UK, to gain an insight on how they experienced the shutdown, and what lessons we can learn for future crisis management. Their accounts were fascinating, honest and often, very emotional. Most importantly, they serve up the lessons we need to learn to improve our crisis management skills for the next ‘unprecedented’ crisis.
For me, the primary lesson really focusses on that ubiquitous word – ‘unprecedented’. Most people I spoke to didn’t have a crisis management plan that included a pandemic response; or if they did, it focussed on how to stay open with less staff. As a sector, we’ve never considered that we might have to shut down our sites for an indefinite period. Why is that?
In other countries, sudden shutdowns are more common. In the US, for example, Kaywin Feldman, Director of the National Gallery of Art has talked about the ramifications of not uncommon federal shutdowns:
“With several shutdowns in our history, the team at the National Gallery has a lot of expertise in temporarily closing the museum to the staff and public. We had already drafted our lists of staff positions and functions that are essential to daily operations when the facility is closed to the public” (source).
In the UK, that kind of experience is absent. The Second World War is probably the most recent precedent, and let’s be honest, museum and attractions closure isn’t really a key aspect of the war that we learn about at school. So, for a lot of people I spoke to, indefinite closure for any reason, let alone a pandemic, just wasn’t something they’d ever thought about.
And yet, it was managed. We heard about the theft of Van Gogh’s Spring Garden from the Singer Laren museum in the Netherlands, but these stories are rare. For most museum and heritage sites, collections have been put to bed, sites have been secured and decisions, though hard, have been made.
Does this mean that crisis management plans and risk registers are pointless? No. Rather it means, as one of my interviewees put it:
“I don’t think it makes any difference to have something on your risk register if you don’t have the capability of coping with it”(source).
The skills of the senior leadership team
Just as important as those written processes and procedures are the crisis management skills of your senior leadership team; their ability to make critical decisions and the flexibility to shape operational experience to the current problem.
In fact, although nobody I interviewed has ever managed through a pandemic before, many had brought knowledge and experience from previous incidents that helped them through some aspect of the current crisis.
For example, one manager had figured out how to quickly amend public messaging for her outdoor attraction when bad weather forced temporary closure in February this year. Another had set up a system of closed building checks following a leak in his museum one Christmas. One Director’s focus on improving internal communication in her institution meant that things ran more smoothly when crisis communications began, because many of those channels were already in place.
All of these experiences, many of them part of the warp and weft of daily operations, had given them ideas and, more importantly, decision making skills that stood them in good stead when it came to the Covid-19 crisis.
So, while we might be living in unprecedented times, be aware that you and your teams may already have many of the skills they need to manage crisis successfully. If you want to test these skills, head to therecoveryroomblog.com/practical-resources, where you can find pre-written crisis scenarios for tabletop exercises. By exercising those crisis management muscles regularly, you’ll find that when you need to, you’ll rise to the challenge.
You can find out more about my crisis management research at therecoveryroomblog.com
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About the author
Rachel Mackay (@rachmackay)is the Manager of the Historic Royal Palaces buildings at Kew Gardens, including Kew Palace and the Great Pagoda, which reopened in 2018 following a huge restoration project. Rachel has just completed her MA in International Heritage Management, and has focused much of her recent research on the crisis management of Covid-19 in the UK museum and heritage industry. She created The Recovery Room in July as a way to share research and resources, and to support the sector through recovery from the crisis.
