By
Rebecca Gibson |
More than 200 delegates from the cruise, aviation, energy, retail and transportation industries attended the International Humanitarian Assistance Symposium (IHAS), held in Miami in June 2012. The cruise industry was represented by executives from Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, Carnival Cruise Lines, Carnival UK, Disney Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).
Organised by Intercruises and The Family Assistance Foundation (FAF), an independent non-profit corporation established for the purpose of empowering people following tragedy, the symposium’s objective was to enhance industry response to emergencies and disasters.
“We are here to better understand how we can support a survivor, by listening to their experiences and identifying what was done well and where we need to improve. The development of our compassion consciousness begins with the survivor’s stories.” This was the message from the opening remarks, provided by Carolyn Coarsey and Jeff Morgan, the founders of the FAF. It echoed the sentiments of Gary Bald, senior vice president and global security officer of RCCL: “It is important to sit opposite a survivor, to learn from them in person – there is no experience like it.”
A cruise industry breakout session featured an expert panel of Andrew Baldwin, customer care and communications manager, Carnival UK; Alice Cain-Moore, guest relations manager, Norwegian Cruise Line; Ray Gonzalez, manager, care team services, Carnival Cruise Lines and Steve Williams, RN, CEN, CFRN, director, medical services, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. This panel outlined the time and effort invested in safety and provided a clear message: “Guest safety comes first.” In addition, training should acknowledge that all members of a care team are important, regardless of position, and care team trained personnel should be in place for all aspects of a guest’s journey. Already, cruise lines often invite ground handlers and port agents for care team training, enabling them to integrate and work together in an emergency situation. Training should happen on an annual basis, including drills, both ashore and onboard, to ensure that teams have as much preparation as possible.
It was agreed that all teams that use similar Human Services Response (HSR) training, whether cruise lines or ground handlers, can be considered a resource. Cruise lines should identify ports in which their own resources are limited and work to develop contingency plans to ensure there are resources in place for a crisis situation, such as ground handlers and other suppliers. In addition, they should support one other in crisis situations to ensure that cruise guests, regardless of which ship they are on, get the support and resources needed in the immediate aftermath of an incident.
Care team responders from Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line provided an intimate insight into a responder’s thought process, showing the enormity of their undertaking and discussing the lessons that they had learned from their experience with survivors:
· Training can never fully prepare you for the actual situation, but it ‘kicks in’ and helps immensely during a response
· Never be fake, never pretend. Be real, be human, be compassionate
· Survivors have been through incredible trauma and may forget to eat, drink, sleep or any other basic needs activity
· Regardless of how basic, providing a survivor with the simple things can bring comfort, from a type of food to watching a TV programme
· Just being there can help immensely. You need to be able to support a survivor at all times
· Provide survivors with information to make decisions, but let them make the decision and keep some control, for example regarding transport plans
· An emergency response is a traumatic experience for responders and they should be debriefed by their managers and have the support of their work colleagues.
Jennifer de la Cruz, senior director of public relations at Carnival Cruise Lines, and Richard Bartrem, vice president communications and community relations at Westjet Airlines, provided a final bonus session on crisis communications. Key messages included the need to be honest and open and to report facts only. The session highlighted the need to talk directly to survivors and the general public and to ensure internal teams know what is going on first. Social media was mentioned as both a fast method of releasing information and a two-way communication channel between the organisation involved and survivors, family of survivors, the media and general public. However, the resources needed to be in place to monitor it. Finally, participants in this session agreed that “‘No comment’ is a massive comment.”
The IHAS meeting united different industries and there is no question that invaluable knowledge sharing took place. Whether it has enhanced the capacity to respond to tragedy will only be proven over time. One thing is certain: the cruise industry is dedicated to the emotional and physical safety of its guests and employees and will work as one to ensure it leads the way in emergency response.