Overview: Tourism Crisis Management Institute at the University of Florida

Founded in 2007, the Tourism Crisis Management Institute (TCMI) is focused on research and training that will help tourism businesses prepare for, and recover from, nature and human induced disasters that create crises for visitor destinations. The Institute is housed within the University of Florida's Center for Tourism Research and Development. To address the critical need to prepare tourism industry professionals for crises, TCMI has developed a comprehensive Online Tourism Crisis Management Certificate targeted to several sectors within the tourism industry. Specific certification programs are offered for each of the following professional audiences; Accommodations and Lodging Industry Professionals, Attractions Industry Professionals and Destination Management, Travel and Marketing Professionals.

Expertise in crisis management is essential for all professionals
with responsibility for visitor safety as well as destination image.

Tourism Crisis Management Certification Program

The Certificate Program in Tourism Crisis Management is an interactive online program designed to provide tourism professionals with the expertise and tools needed to plan and prepare for crisis events. This includes natural and human-induced disasters that affect their destination or business.
While research shows that many businesses have some type or crisis management plan, many are generic or contain only certain essential components of an emergency plan. This certificate program is different in that our comprehensive model addresses the four stages of crisis planning – Reduction, Readiness, Response and Recovery – and includes specific planning processes for addressing guest, employee, and asset impacts.

Some of the key learning from our studies, to date, include:

• Research shows that the majority of businesses are focused on the incident phase of planning, with a particular focus on the communication portion of the response.
• The majority of businesses lack attention to the pre-incident phase of planning and have not spent time identifying potential crises which would affect their business and more specifically, how to be ready when a crisis does occur.
• Recovery is an afterthought because most businesses do not consider writing down the pathway to recovery, including detailed methods which address business continuity, human resources and internal debriefing.
• The level of attention to unique aspects of the business is lacking and most plans are generic. Details relative to different types of crises are also lacking and thus the ability to respond in a focused timely manner has been compromised.

This 8-module learning series has been developed by the faculty at the University of Florida Tourism Crisis Management Institute, in conjunction with tourism, travel and operations subject matter experts. The series is taught by university faculty members and industry professionals who have honed their crisis management skills through experienced senior leadership and real hands-on operational experience.

Core content includes:

• Fundamentals of tourism crisis management.
• Fundamentals of emergency management.
• Introduction of the TCMI model and competing tourism crisis management models.
• Building an end-to-end crisis plan.

The online environment allows for interaction and benchmarking between fellow professionals and faculty without the time and investment of travel. During the course of the program, team members will receive a framework and tools to create a comprehensive crisis management plan for their organization that follows the complete reduction, readiness, response and recovery model.

Course Objectives:

• To enable leaders/organizations to prepare for crisis events that affects the well-being of their business and the tourism industry.
• To enable leaders/organizations to evaluate current risk, identify critical external partners and encourage necessary public policy that will lead to recovery.
• To enable leaders/organizations to respond quickly and protect the destination image.
• To enable the affected business to recover as soon as possible.
• To engage industry professionals in a shared learning experience.
• To provide a resource for future crises, aiding in execution of well thought out policies.

Why the University of Florida Tourism Crisis Management Program?

TCMI has a team of seasoned professionals to facilitate the certificate training programs. This certificate is offered ONLY at the University of Florida with its unique approach to blending current research with leaders who have planned and implemented crisis management for both tourism destinations and businesses. While other certificate programs speak to general planning for all types of businesses, this is the only series targeted specifically to the tourism industry and its varied segments. By sector, the program content is clear, comprehensive, specific, and actionable.

Who Should Become Certified?

The certificate series is designed for senior leadership within tourism organizations, including current and aspiring GM's and executive team members, as well as mid to senior-level management who wish to build skills related to crisis reduction, readiness, response, and recovery from natural and human-induced disasters that affect their destination or business.

Benefits to Becoming Certified:

• Learn how your business/destination can better prepare for crisis events that affect tourism and general economic well-being.
• Enable your business/destination to respond to eventual crises and protect guests, employees, and your business image/brand.
• Enables quick recovery after a crisis.
• Become networked to a group of industry professionals through shared learning that will build cooperation, best practice sharing and assistance in times of crisis.
• Learn specific and tangible processes to create or significantly improve your current plan; comprehensive, detailed and actionable.
• To become networked to a group of industry professionals through shared learning that will build cooperation and assistance in times of crisis.
• A great developmental learning opportunity for leaders growing in the tourism industry.
• To create or significantly improve the tourism crisis management plan that will enable your business/destination to prepare, respond and recover from a crisis event.

How Long Will It Take To Achieve Certification?

• The class consists of seven modules completed over 4 weeks (29 days).
• Students can complete each module lecture (1 hour) and assignments at their leisure within the week the module is scheduled.
• Teacher/Student contact in discussion groups occurs two times a week by discussion boards, chat rooms and messaging.
• Time investment is approximately 8 hours per week. This includes the online lecture, online discussion between peer groups, background reading and assignments that will help build your agency/organization plan.

Topics for the online certification program include:

Week 1
Module 1 - The Fundamentals of Tourism Crisis - define crisis and describe the types of crises
Module 2 - Fundamentals of Emergency Management – define emergency management and discuss key elements

Week 2
Module 3 - Fundamentals of Tourism Crisis Management – define crisis management and describe the factors that influence its applicability to the tourism industry
Module 4 - Reduction of Risk – describe the steps your organization can take to prevent or mitigate the impacts of a crisis event

Week 3
Module 5 - Crisis Management Readiness – discuss the key factors to consider in selecting the crisis management team andsteps to preparing the crisis management plan
Module 6 – Crisis Management Response – share the steps to an effective crisis response

Week 4
Module 7 – Crisis Management Recovery – discuss business continuity and share key crisis recovery tasks
Module 8 – Final Assessment

Attractions and Lodging Program Dates:

January 8 – February 4, 2010
February 12 – March 12, 2010
March 26 – April 23, 1020
May 7 – June 4, 2010
June 18 – July 16, 2010

For more information or questions, please contact:

Amy Elliot
Program Coordinator, Tourism Crisis Management Institute
Cell: (407) 325-3497
Email: amyelliot@hhp.ufl.edu