Crisis Media Management: Lessons Learned from LAX

November 7, 2013 Steve Wellmeier

Photo courtesy Los Angeles Times/MCT — Photo courtesy *Los Angeles Times*/MCT

The tragic shooting of a TSA officer and wounding of three others last Friday, November 1 at Los Angeles International Airport gives us all pause to reflect on our societal ills. But it also presents a lesson for those in the travel industry on how to effectively deal with communications during the hectic hours when a bad situation is unfolding.

Skift Travel IQ, a New York-based company that offers news and other information services to professionals in the travel industry, published a revealing article on the topic earlier this week, “How Los Angeles Airport Turned to Twitter During Friday’s Shooting Incident.”

"Most of the Affluent Aren't Brand Conscious"

October 31, 2013 Steve Wellmeier

That was the headline of an October 29th online article in Travelmarket Report: Voice of the Travel Professional and it caught my eye.

The article was an interview with Ron Kurtz, president of the American Affluence Research Center. It is a quick read, but I’d like to pull out a few of the main points that Ron makes in the article:

Most of the top 10% of the wealthy are self-made millionaires with little in common with the rich and famous seen on TV.
Significant percentages of the affluent consumers are either ignorant of or scornful of luxury brands, including hotel brands.

Professional Therapy: Build a Wall

October 25, 2013 Steve Wellmeier

Winston Churchill at Chartwell in the late 1920s.

Walls get a bad rap.

President Reagan famously challenged Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 to “tear down this wall” while standing in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. And, while not quite rising to the infamy of the Iron Curtain, the barriers that create dreaded “silos” in our corporate and not-for-profit cultures have also fallen into disfavor in recent years.

But walls and, more precisely, building real walls can be a good thing. Read on, and I’ll tell you why.