Transcript COSTA CONCORDIA DISASTER

COSTA CONCORDIA DISASTER
Leigh McKenzie
Video Timeline
The facts
 Saturday 13 January 2012

Cause: Struck a rock while deviating from planned course

Location: Off Isola del Giglio, Italy, Mediterranean Sea

On board: 4,252 passengers and crew

Losses: 32 deaths, 64 injuries

Operator: Costa Crociere

Parent Company: Carnival Cruises

Preventable Crisis – STRONG Crisis Responsibility
Costa’s Response – first 48 hours
 Jan 13


Passengers post pictures and
tweets from the event
Media turns to social media
for eye witnesses
 Jan 14

Company response:
 Dark site activated in early AM
 Costa releases 4 statements throughout the day
 Costa uses Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blog to inform
 Jan 16

Costa President and CEO gave a short and vague press conference
Carnival’s Response - Inadequate
 Micky Arison, CEO and Chairman of Carnival Corp., took a
hands off approach.

Tweeted about crisis from his Yacht in Miami

Made no public appearances or in-person statements

NY Times, WSJ, Forbes – “Where is Micky Arison?”

Jan 19 – Carnival and Mr. Arison announced they would be
“taking a break from
social media to focus
on the tragedy”
Aftermath
 Compensation (Jan 28, 2012):

Compensation package of $14,500 per passenger

Offered a psychological assistance program
 Investigation:

Company should have taken responsibility and just not blamed

Captain Schettino is still facing criminal charges

Four other crew members charged with manslaughter
Aftermath con’t
 Financial Impact:

Ship a constructive loss of at least $500 million

Carnival estimated a financial impact of $95 million for 2012
 Annual Report 2013:

“2013 was clearly a challenging year for our company”

“Costa Cruises continued to experience a strong brand
perception recovery”

“The brand recovered more than half of the reputation it lost in
2012”
Takeaways
 Costa Cruises did okay

CEO of Costa Cruises was not a good media spokesman.
Factors: Language barrier, lack of press conferences

The company used social media effectively.

Proper consideration was given to passengers
 Carnival Corp.’s response was inadequate

CEO Micky Arison should have taken an active roll.
 Overall, the company recovered well.

Bookings in 2013 were almost back to pre-crisis levels

Bookings in 2014 have more than recovered
References
•
Camp, S. V. (2012, January 23). PR Lessons to Be Learned From the Costa Concordia Tragedy. PR News.
Retrieved October 19, 2014, from www.prnewsonline.com
•
Costa Concordia Statements. (2012, January 14). Costa Cruises. Retrieved October 19, 2014, from
http://www.costacruises.co.uk/B2C/GB/Info/Pages/concordia_statement.aspx
•
Estrel, M., & Lublin, J. (2012, January 23). Carnival CEO Lies Low After Wreck. The Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved October 19, 2014, from www.online.wsj.com
•
Love, A., & Owens, J. (2013, January 17). A year on from Costa Concordia: How the cruise industry
fought back. PRWeek. Retrieved October 19, 2014, from www.prweek.com
•
Coombs, Timothy. (2007, October 30). Crisis Management and Communications. Retrieved October 19,
2014, from www.blackboard.temple.edu
•
Gallo, Carmine. (2012, January 18). 3 Things Carnival Must Do Now to Manage the Costa Crisis.
Retrieved October 19, 2014 from www.forbes.com