Method
State of Florida Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs) and Tourist Development Councils (TDCs) were asked to provide their tourism crisis management plans to the University of Florida’s Tourism Crisis Management Institute via email or mail. In the state of Florida, there are 67 counties, and 56 of these counties have a TDC or CVB. Twenty-four of the 56 CVBs/TDCs submitted their crisis management plans - a response rate of 43%. Of the 24 submitted county crisis management plans, only 17 were specific to the tourism industry. The remaining seven were general county emergency management plans with little attention to the visitor industry - a response rate of 30%. Four counties expressed they did not have a tourism crisis management plan.

Comparative analysis was conducted to analyze each plan based on four stages of crisis management. The following findings represent the 17 dedicated tourism management plans.

Findings
The Reduction phase indicated most plans included crisis awareness in their crisis management plans, although 41% of the plans did not include a component on raising political awareness in regards to the economic impact of a crisis on tourism. Almost two thirds of the plans included standard operating procedures in relation to planning for an event.

In the Readiness phase, most counties included crisis management plans; however, 44% did not include planning specific to tourism in their crisis management plan. Seventy-one percent of the plans did include a component on health and safety for visitors and organization employees and families.

The Response phase showed 66% of the counties included emergency response procedures in their crisis management plans. In contrast, only 38% of the plans included procedures to assist families and visitors. About 66% of the counties included communication procedures in their crisis management plans. In fact, for most CVB/TDC organizations, the major component of their planning focuses on external and media communication.

Specific to the Recovery phase, 61% of the counties did not include procedures to address business continuity plans. Only 6% indicated they have procedures to address human resource/labor issues in a post event situation and only 16% planned for debriefing sessions to the local industry and political leadership after a crisis.

Conclusion and Recommendation
Most crisis management plans submitted were lacking information concerning procedures for tourism planning, family/visitors assistance, business continuity plans, human resource issues, and debriefing plans. This gap of critical information in CVB and TDC crisis management plans provides TCMI with the opportunity to assist Florida counties in developing well-rounded crisis management plans.