Communication with your guests about summer fires isn’t a convenience.

By MARK RIFFEY for the Flathead Beacon

Now that the Reynolds Creek fire is 65% contained, there are two myths to squash:

“The fire is almost out.”

Not true. Ask anyone close to the fire teams and they’ll likely tell you that only a season-ending snow will likely knock it out completely. Even so, if you let this cancel your 2015 Glacier National Park visit, you’re probably making a mistake.

“There’s not much to see with the fire burning.“

Not true. As I noted online numerous times over the last several weeks, the park’s still open,the Going-to-the-Sun road is mostly open, 99.97% of the park is not burning and it remains more than capable of wowing (and challenging) your mind and body. Thankfully, news organizations, Inciweb, GNP, various tourism groups and others are communicating this message so that visitors don’t cancel their plans.

Allowing these two perceptions to percolate in your guests’ minds without updates is dangerous not only for this year’s success, but for future years as well.

The Reynolds Creek Fire in Glacier National Park on July 22, 2015. Greg Lindstrom | Flathead Beacon

What else gets burned in a forest fire?

Forests aren’t the only thing that are burned by forest fires. Profitability, traffic, cash flow and the best-laid plans can also go up in smoke.

When we have a fire, it’s all but certain to hurt tourism – particularly if you depend on someone else to set your visitors at ease.

I know you’re busy. It’s peak season, or should be. Even so, the Reynolds Creek fire should have you thinking about a few things:

• How does your business react when red flag conditions are present?
• How does your business react when that first fire of the season hits the news?
• How does your business react when the first wave of cancellations comes in?
• Are those reactions planned? Have they been rehearsed / tested?
• If you’re away from the property (perhaps your parent is sick), will these plans be executed as you wish with the type of messages you want delivered?
• Do you have all of the steps in place to communicate with your visitors in order to minimize the damage to your business?

Yes, this is all about communication.

The first thing you might ask is “Which visitors do we communicate with?“, but don’t forget that what you say is as important as who you say it to.

Which guests need information?

My suggestion would be “All of them“, but that’s an incomplete answer.

When a fire (or similar event) happens, there are several groups of guests impacted – and their decisions will affect you and your business. The better prepared you are to keep them up to date with calm, consumable information, the better they will be able to make well-considered decisions. The last thing you want to do is (intentionally or otherwise) convince them to continue their trip only to have them deal with circumstances that cause them to never return to your area.

Sidebar: You are doing your best to get them back on a recurring basis, right? Sorry, I digress.

These groups of guests include:

• Guests currently at your property
• Guests in transit to your property
• Guests with reservations in the next couple of weeks
• Guests with reservations a month out or longer
• Guests pondering making reservations for next year
• Guests whose reservations must be cancelled because of an evacuation order
• Guests wondering if they can get into your place due to cancellations

I’ll bet you can think of a few other groups of tourists, guests, visitors – whatever you call them.

Each group to make a decision about their visit, but the message each group requires is not the same. If you’re communicating with all guests with the same information, it’s likely that you are not helping them make the best decision for them and in turn, it’s costing you business.

Rules of the road

I suspect you have the ability to communicate with these groups easily using email. Please don’t send one generic email to 746 visitors. Many of them will not receive it and the “tech savvy” ones will find it aggravating.

You should also have their cell number so you can catch them in-transit or in the area.

You should be able to get a personal message to each person in each of these groups without a lot of hassle.

You may be wondering why I left a lot unsaid. Two reasons: There’s a lot more to say and that’s why we have next time.

**********

Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on Twitter, or email him at mriffey@flatheadbeacon.com.