We’re all in this together
We recently announced our Health and Safety Maturity Model, a framework of guidelines to help cruise lines and other industries plan their adoption of new policies, procedures, technology and approaches to increase the health and safety of all parties involved. Brands of all kinds will need to rebuild trust with guests and employees in regards to health and safety. Our proposed framework aims to help companies rebuild that trust through transparent communication regarding what measures are being implemented as we endeavor to simultaneously create and adapt to a new normal in a post-COVID-19 world.
Here at DeCurtis, we have been around since 1998 but primarily dedicated to cruise for about ten years. We consider ourselves lucky to participate in an industry as engaged and active in many areas as cruise has been. While there are those who may cast aspersions, it has been our experience that the industry is focused on not only creating incredible products for their guests, be they traditional vacations, expeditions, or any of the truly magical experiences the varied lines create but also on constant evolution and improvement. At SeaTrade Europe this year, our team heard (and saw) the focus on the environment that has been present for quite some time come across loud and clear. The effort to balance the needs of the lines and the health and growth of the cities they serve while anchoring the pursuit in a set of procedures and protocols that can help protect the environments we all treasure and share was and is still palpable.
I suspect seeing that focus is why this latest assault on cruise regarding health and safety felt particularly personal to many of us.
Now I know, many may not make it this many words into an article before commenting. That seems to be the way of the world nowadays and I, fairly or unfairly, blame Twitter for the 140 (280) character attention span most markets have devolved to. That said, when the threat of coronavirus gained very public attention and this industry was in the crosshairs, the overused-and-rarely-factually-supported phrase “floating Petri dishes” made me angry.
“Wait!” you may be saying to yourself. “You are not supposed to talk like that in a business blog!”
Oh well; I think honesty matters.
I understand the sentiment that spawned this trope and I even get some of the lazy forwarding that often leads to the rapid-fire spread of ideology like this. That said, it does complicate matters when we are facing such a real and present danger. To attack this crisis (from a business perspective, as I know there are far more pressing and large-scale implications to the pandemic) we have to work together.
We get by with a little help from our friends
I want to inject here a few kudos that may catch readers off-guard. The cruise industry partner ecosystem has been working their asses off to try to help the industry (and the larger business space where we can). Recently, both MXP and ResCompany released solution sets to try and help their clients be better prepared to face this pandemic. When it comes to safety, a wise man once said, “We’re all in the same boat!”
Wiser words were never spoken. He spoke them when we released the industry–leading safety solution Mobile Assembly Suite™ but the concept was and has remained true; when it comes to safety, we are all in this together. We are all working to provide tools, teams and technology to help our clients. Sadly, without a tremendous amount of guidance or leadership, the industry has had to scramble, taking cues from the best practices being advanced by our land-based resort peers and other sectors. For many of you who follow the industry or, more specifically, our offerings, you may know our solution offering in this space is DeCurtis Shield.
In the upcoming weeks and months, we expect to see more solution offerings from fellow vendors, technology partners, etc. The hardware and software options available now and the ones yet to be developed will be overwhelming (in a good way) and we look forward to implementing change and driving innovation in this space, as we always have. But what this pandemic has and continues to teach us is that we must attack the problem from as many sides as possible. The best hardware and the most robust software simply will not be enough on its own — we need better processes. We need a way to measure the multiple proactive protocols that need to be implemented. We need a set of guidelines that help us develop a new baseline of what healthy, safe and secure means. And we need, more than ever, to help our friends in cruise and other industries whenever, wherever and however we can.
The Health and Safety Maturity Model is our way of assisting, to start a conversation and hopefully a collaboration on a framework that can make a direct impact as we try to navigate this current crisis. This is, based on our experience, what needs to happen so we can iterate, innovate and move forward not just practically but confidently!
And that, simply put, is our ‘why.’ Because we are all in this together.
The next blog in this series (you don’t have to wait long — it’s tomorrow!) will focus on the ‘how’ aspect: how our experience brought us to this point and how we plan to move forward. I look forward to you joining in the conversation.
Click here to read the next entry in this series.