This summer at Zion Ponderosa Resort I had the opportunity to take what I had learned about crisis management and use it in a real life setting.
Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort is located on the east side of Zion National Park.
Zion National Park officials annouced in late May 2010 that the East Entrance of the park would be closed for certain parts of the day for road construction during the months of June through October. This is the main entrance for our guest to get to the park for the resort and according to a previously conducted survey 86% of the resort’s guest come for Zion National Park. As a result we perdicted that reservations would take a substantional decrease in the next few months.
I was given the task of making a informational letter and map showing alternative routes to get around to the other entrances of the park. This was then emailed 30 days in advance to our future guests.
These hours were very hard to work with for the Resort and required extra unpaid early morning hours for our employees to shuttle guests to the entrance before it closed for the day.
As the intern I was assigned to be the resorts repersentatives on the Road Construction committee for Zion National Park and spent the month of June with fellow east and west side business representatives nogotating the park on changing the hours and days of road construction to better accomodate our needs.
Part of our crisis plan was not only to inform our guests before they got to their destination but also when they arrived. Our conceirge’s desk was tranformed into Road Construction Information Headquarters. We installed a hotline for road construction questions only with 24/7 service along with maps for alternative routes and also full brochures of every amenity that we offered at the resort to better satisfy our guests needs.
Overall our crisis plan was incredibly successful with minor changes in scheduling of employees and hours of operation from our dining services.
Megan Darrington 