HLT 7038: Crisis, Risk, and Strategic Change Management - JW Marriott

This report critically analyzes crisis management strategies, focusing on the JW Marriott's response to Hurricane Harvey. It examines theoretical approaches to crisis management, different crisis typologies, and the impact on the hospitality industry. The report reviews the US hospitality industry post-hu...Read More

Running head: STRATEGIC CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Strategic change management
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author note

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Executive summary:
With the rise of ideas like globalization business organizations are highly indulged with the
each other in order to achieve mutual benefit through international business. Under this
situation, this report was aimed to discuss the application of the relevant theoretical
approaches regarding the crisis management through critical evaluation of the different crisis
typologies. In order to provide clear idea regarding the crisis management in various sectors,
this report has chosen the case of the JW Marriott, which is one of the survivor of hurricane
Harvey that took place during august of 2017. From the discussion it can be seen that the
crisis management is an essential and integral part of THE industry. Without the help of crisis
management, industries wouldn’t have been here, where they are now. Crisis management
has provided various industries, especially to THE industries to deal with the crisis situations.
Rather than providing escape route from the event of the crisis, THE industry from the crisis
management has learned how to deal with it with proper preparedness, plan implementation
and then move on with the help of the learning from the incident. Moving forward the report
has discussed the scenario of THE industry of the US post hurricane Harvey and has
showcased how the atrial crisis has impacted the organization. It has been seen that various
parties related with the organization has been impacted by different magnitude and they have
learned various learning from the event.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................4
Application of theory:................................................................................................................5
Different Crisis typologies:....................................................................................................6
Crisis management theoretical approach:..............................................................................7
Hospitality industry of US critical review with special focus to JW Marriott.........................10
Lessons learned and future crisis and risk management planning:..........................................11
Policy recommendation:...........................................................................................................12
As of government’s perspective:..........................................................................................12
According to firm’s perspective:..........................................................................................12
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................13
References:...............................................................................................................................14

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Introduction:
With the rise of ideas like globalization business organizations are highly indulged
with the each other in order to achieve mutual benefit through international business. As the
Martin (2017) argues, openness of the economies has aided them to achieve better amount of
trade balance and in addition exposure to the cultural value of the societies has benefited the
different part of the world to have better standard of living. However, there are researchers
like (lrogh and Blakely (2016) who argue that international business has rather harmed the
development of the state owing to the polarization of perceived benefit, thus it deteriorates
the condition of the trade. Among many industries that have been benefited from the
international trade Tourism, Hospitality and the event (THE) is such a sector that has gained
most of the benefit. However, it has also been seen that due to the openness of the economies,
instance of civic, political as well as the electronic crisis has enhanced that has posed
negative impact on THE industry. According to the latest figure, THE industry of US has
provided 503.7 billion USD to the country’s economy that signify the importance of the
industry to the state (Hassani et al. 2015). According to the Fontana and Sawyer (2016) it has
been seen that there is various endogenous and exogenous variables that prevail within the
industry and which are highly potential to hamper the natural growth path. As it can be seen
that visitors to the US are highly skeptical to the crisis, it become paramount importance to
the mangers of THE industry to understand and implement the strategies that can eradicate
the crisis events within the industry (Abrate and Vigila 2016).
Under this situation, this report is aimed to discuss the application of the relevant
theoretical approaches regarding the crisis management through critical evaluation of the
different crisis typologies. In order to provide clear idea regarding the crisis management in
various sectors, this report has chosen the case of the JW Marriott, which is one of the
survivor of hurricane Harvey that took place during august of 2017. In excess to the analysis

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of the basic theoretical framework of THE industry, this report will provide in-depth details
regarding the immediate response to the crisis and risk faced by the different segment of the
authorities related to the firm. Moving forward, the report will analyses the factors that has
been identified as the key element to prevent any future instance of the event like this and to
conclude it will provide a summarized overview of its findings while portraying various
recommendations for the firm.
Application of theory:
Through enhanced mobility and better connectivity among the states, THE industry
has evolved as one of the business sector that accounts for 6.6% commuters out of total
passengers in the world clubbing all the means of transportation like airway, roadway and sea
transportation (Becker 2016). In addition to this recent survey suggests that business of THE
industry has shared 10.2% of the world GDP and it is accounted for 10% of jobs out of total
job creation during the year 2016 (Kabeta and Sidhu 2016). This highlights the performance
of THE industry during the year 2016 and considering this it can be seen that there is a
paramount importance of THE industries to the world economic performance. Thus
understanding the application theory is highly essential in order to mitigate the crisis from
THE industry.
Present global crisis scenario has caused in various alteration in the economic,
political and social alternation of the performance of organizations. In this situation crisis
management can act as the major factor that have the potential to let the organizations grow
with its natural flow (Reason 2016). Being a mechanism that deal with the occurrence of
disruptive events that reflect substantial amount of impact on the economic as well as
financial performance of the firm crisis management in today’s world is the best possible
option available in front of THE industry. According to the latest survey, there are various
type of crisis management that provided differentiated outcome to THE industries. There has

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been vast amount of researches regarding the typologies of the crisis management because
each of them possess different amount of importance and characteristics (Adesugba and
Mavrotas 2016).
Different Crisis typologies:
Details regarding the different types of crisis typologies are as follows:
Natural crisis:
Natural crisis is one of the most common form of crisis that occurs throughout the
year in frequent occasion of different place. For instance, natural occurrence like tsunami,
earthquake, flood and hurricanes can cause huge damage to THE industry. When it comes to
the US hospitality industry, then it has been observed that in various instances, they have
faced instances like hurricane, cyclone and other natural disaster that has caused them loss in
the financial wealth as well as loss of reputation too (Paton and Johnston 2017). A real life
instance can be seen from the case of the JW Marriott hotel in the Hudson areas in US, where
the number of bookings fell post the hurricane Harvey and caused huge economic loss to the
industry as well.
Civil crisis:
Second next common crisis that possess series of threat to THE industry is the civil
crisis. These are very common in various part of the world and cane come into existence as
the form of the political turmoil, terrorism, hooliganism, outrageous activity by group or a
group of people.in such cases, it has been observed that tourists opts for cancellation of their
bookings that cause THE industry huge loss (Giegerich 2017). A real life instance of the civil
crisis can be seen from the case of the Brussel attack on 2016, where the post crisis situation,
hotel booking fell by 60% (Gilson 2016). Thus it can be entailed that civil crisis is one of the
major factors that cause huge loss to the economy.
Health crisis:

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When it comes to the health crisis, it can be seen that the occurrence of rapid outbreak
of the epidemic can cause health crisis to THE industry. Customers being skeptic to the crisis,
health issues and epidemic can cause reduction in the fall of the demand of the service.
Instances like polio, malaria, SARS, unknown fever can spread like epidemic and affect the
vast amount of people within a specific region (Boin, Stern and Sundeliu 2016). In that case
visitors refrain from visiting those place and eventually industries at that region dries up.
Thus crisis management is essential to mitigate the health crisis because without it, the firms
will not be able to deal with the fall in the demand of the customers.
Technological crisis:
This is the newest addition to the crisis management course work, where firms faces
issues with the ever increasing technical specification. Interdependence among the industries
has eventually made the technology complicated and with rise of its reach, it can be seen that
the firms face enhanced cases of the technological glitches (Graham, Avery and Park 2015).
In addition to this, enhanced complexity of the programming cause malfunctioning of the
instruments in various occasions that hamper the popularity of the firm leading to fall in the
income on behalf of the firm.
Except these, there are various other type of crisis. For instance there is crisis from the
misconduct of the organization, crisis of malevolence, crisis from the confrontation. In
addition to this, workplace violence can also be acknowledged as the threat or crisis by the
customers of THE industry.
Crisis management theoretical approach:
Studies regarding the crisis management has been developed since decades and
through this, one thing has been well documented that growth of an industry is correlated
with the good crisis management. With the higher amount of risk, industries, specially THE
industry are prone to face higher magnitude of negative impact. Being highly skeptical

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towards the crisis situations, clients of THE industry prefer to refrain from the industry and
this provides negative impact on the financial as well as the popularity aspect of THE
industry (Bellomo et al. 2016). Thus, it has become of paramount importance that THE
industry consider crisis management and brings up with deterrent strategies that can provide
much amount of growth to the said industry (Fearn 2016). Over the year, through various
researches, THE industry has come up with various crisis management theories, which are
potent to provide much needed stability and deterrent policy to THE organization. Details
regarding the theoretical framework of these theoretical policies are as follows:
Crisis management strategies:
Avoiding crisis is the highest measure is the main aim of the business organizations
now a days. Over the year studies has provided various strategies to deal with the crisis,
however among them crisis management strategies was the most helpful. Depending upon the
exogenous and the endogenous variables of the business, strategic measurement of crisis
management of the operation comes into reality. Most of the business houses utilize the five
steps crisis management model, which incorporate the internal communication, allocating the
strategic assets, getting the essence of the potential impact of the crisis on the organization,
bringing in he means of monitoring and learning and then keep going with the knowledge
acquired (Bratton and Gold 2017). However, it has been observed that all the firm does not
goes with the same principal and they tends to change the crisis management strategies
depending upon the nature of the business and the operation of the business.
Crisis management design:
This one is another crisis management program that deals with the occurrence of the
crisis. According to this model there are three factors, which are preparedness, response,
recovery in order to deal with the crisis situation. As this mechanism suggests, the firms need
to be prepare itself for the crisis, then acquiring the information regarding the possible impact

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of the crisis on the firm it need to response to the crisis and then it has to move forward. This
plan is also known as the mitigation and prevention due to its nature of operation and abilities
to solve the crisis (Saoutal, Matta and Cahier 2014).
Contingency program:
This one is the modified version of the crisis management design, where the
contingency planning is aimed to provide solution to the different types of crisis faced by the
firms. This mechanism is consist of three different factors, which are incident response,
disaster recover and business continuity. Under the simulate framework, this crisis
management program enhance the ability of the managers to understand information as assess
the possible impact of the crisis on the organization and then train them to response quickly
in order to gauge the situation. It can be seen that, workers from THE industry is well aware
of this program due to its usage in THE industry at huge amount (Fiedler 2015). It provides
the mangers potential to deal with the crisis in interactive way. It trains the mangers to attain
essential information regarding the possible outcome of the impact of the crisis on the
organization and aids them to take necessary response to move forward with the growth of
the business.
Crisis leadership:
Apart from the crisis leadership program most of the crisis management theoretical
approach aimed to handle the crisis with the help of the information flow or through the
mitigation and the prevention policy. However, crisis leadership is the only model that
considers the importance of the leadership during the crisis situation (Ellis et al. 2016).
According to this model, there are five crisis competencies program in order to provide
leadership during the crisis situation. The traits of the leadership are as follows (Shrikova et
al. 2016):
 Creation of trust within the framework of the organization

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 Enhancing the effect of positivism within the organizational framework
 Identifying the possible threats to the business
 Skill of decision making during the time of crisis situation
 Learn from the previous crisis and embrace the firm for the possible impact
These are the common theoretical strategies that aids the firm to deal with the crisis
like situation. When it comes to THE industry, they are utilized in large numbers I order to
avoid the possible outrageous outcome on the industry due to any crisis like situation.
However, apart from these, there are various other crisis management programs available,
though the implication and effectiveness of the same under testing now.
Structural functional strategic theory:
Stability of the firm depends upon the information sharing and the proper knowledge
about the firm’s functioning. As the structural functional strategic theory suggests, it is of
optimal importance that the firms need to share information in both ways at right time at right
place in order to avoid negative impact of crisis on the organization. As opined by this model,
with the help of the proper flow of the information from the mangers in two dimensional
ways, organizations can avoid any crisis like situation very easily (Glaser and Strauss 2017).
Hospitality industry of US critical review with special focus to JW Marriott:
US is one of the biggest attraction to the tourists that has provided much amount of
importance to THE industry of the state. According to the figure 1, it can be seen that the
inbound tourism has faced cyclical change in the number of visiting tourists and during 2017
post Harvey, number of visiting tourist fell drastically compared to the other sessions
(Tradingeconomics.com. 2018).

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As the response to the crisis the stakeholders immediately asked for shutting down the
bookings and the employees has been asked to vacate the hotel under the severe circumstance
of the crisis. Government has forced the employees and the visitors to vacate the place
because the situation was becoming worse (Gramling et al. 2016). However, with proper
precaution and quick act of the workers the firm has sustained the emergency at last.
Lessons learned and future crisis and risk management planning:
According the official press release from the JW Marriott, it has been found that the
firm has watched the effect of the hurricane Harvey and has found that it has posed the
industry second largest amount of threat after hurricane Katrina that took place during 2005
(Adams and Stewart 2015). According to the mangers of the JW Marriott, due to the
hurricane Harvey the firm has faced large amount of profit loss and in case of future planning
it has several things in their mind. It has been seen that as the natural crisis took place, post
that period, there were higher number of cancellation and the hotel itself closed down all the
services (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). Under this situation it got negative reputation as well as
financial loss too. From now on authority of the JW Marriott has decided not to close their
service, rather provide additional service in case of the crisis situation in order to support
their business drive.

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Policy recommendation:
Natural crisis are such a crisis situation that cannot be handled. With the flow of
natural activities, natural crisis comes in to THE industry and it destroys the financial
stability as well as the reputation of the firm. Among many other industries THE industry is
being highly influenced by the natural crisis because due to implication of natural crisis, THE
industry tends to face higher amount of the reduction in the bookings and the loss of revenue
subsequently. Apart from this failure to provide required aid post crisis situation in many
occasion, it hampers the reputation of the firm by a large extent. Thus, both the government
and the firm need to do something that will aid THE industry to survive from the natural
crisis. Recommendations for THE industry to deal with the natural crisis is as follows:
As of government’s perspective:
 Government need to introduce more satellites in order to trace the occurrence and
movement of the hurricanes, tornadoes and other harmful events
 It would be ideal from the government of the states to introduce crisis management
program, because there is no such system at all
 Rural areas are not well connected that makes it hard for the service providers to
reach with the essential service post crisis situation. Thus it would be ideal for the
authority to bring in infrastructural development in these areas
According to firm’s perspective:
 JW is one of the oldest firm with THE industry thus it need to bring in crisis
management program for itself too in order to obey a common practice in its various
outlets
 In addition to the crisis management programs, they need to prepare teams of special
employees who are potential to deal and provide leadership during the crisis like
situation

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 It would be better for the firm to introduce flexible pricing policy, so that it can help
itself from the loss of reputation during post crisis situation
 Rather than cutting price, the firm can try out cashback policies in order to lure the
saturated customer demand post crisis situation, which will aid the financial stability
of the firm as well as will held the firm’s reputation high
Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be seen that the crisis management is an essential
and integral part of THE industry. Without the help of crisis management, industries
wouldn’t have been here, where they are now. Crisis management has provided various
industries, especially to THE industries to deal with the crisis situations. Rather than
providing escape rout from the event of the crisis, THE industry from the crisis management
has learned how to deal with it with proper preparedness, plan implementation and then move
on with the help of the learning from the incident. The report has highlighted that there can be
various types of crisis and among them natural and civil crisis affect THE industry most. In
addition to this, through this analysis it has been found that researches over the year has
introduced various strategies and they are utilized by the various firms of the industry at
various occasions. Among many theoretical strategies to deal with the crisis situation, crisis
leadership is one of the best that provides essential insight to the crisis within THE industry
and help the mangers to deal with the crisis with utmost sincerity.
Moving forward the report has discusses the scenario of THE industry of the US post
hurricane Harvey and has showcased how the atrial crisis has impacted the organization. It
has been seen that various parties related with the organization has been impacted by
different magnitude and they have learned various learning from the event. To conclude the
report has provided various strategies, which are aimed to provide the best solution for THE
industry under any crisis like situation.

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