The 2014 Napa earthquake quickly reminded the wine tourism industry that external factors driving travel can quickly change visitors’ perception of a destination. Paul Wilke's presentation at the 2015 International Wine Tourism Conference in Reims, France looked at visitor trends that emerged following the Napa quake and lessons learned – particularly in the areas of sustainable tourism, recovery and the impact of natural disasters on wine tourism.
Bringing Visitors Back: Lessons Learned from Natural Disasters (IWINETC 2015)
1. Bringing Visitors Back:
Lessons Learned from Natural Disasters
April 2015
#WINERECOVERY
Paul Wilke
CEO, Upright Position Communications
Mare Island, California, USA
47. For a free guide
“8 Ways to Prepare for a Tourism Disaster Before it Happens”
please visit:
www.uprightcomms.com/IWINETC
Notes de l'éditeur
Thank attendees
Created #WINERECOVERY hashtag in case you want to post anything from this session.
Former journalist with 20 years of communications expertise & feet-on-the-ground experience in US & Asia
Managed corporate presence & impact at APEC, CES, Davos, SXSW & the Olympics
Served on Pres. Obama's Travel & Tourism Advisory Board
Created & headed Visa Inc.’s Travel/Tourism Public Affairs division
Crisis tourism PR experience: MI 185, SQ 006, SARS, 2004 Southeast Asian Tsunami, 2013 Napa Earthquake
LET ME TELL YOU A STORY:
Start with my story. I’m not not an “earthquake person”
Your first reaction isn’t, what’s going on at my winery. Your first immediate reaction is “What’s going on/What’s happening”, then comes am I ok?
A 6.0 earthquake rocked the Napa Valley wine country in the wee hours of August 24, causing extensive damage to the areas of Napa, American Canyon and Vallejo
TV images quickly honed in on downtown Napa where the bulk of the damage could be easily seen.
A 6.0 earthquake rocked the Napa Valley wine country in the wee hours of August 24, causing extensive damage to the areas of Napa, American Canyon and Vallejo
This was the largest earthquake to hit the SF bay area since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
One person killed and 200 injured
Many wineries had situations like this
Some wine damage was limited to grocery stores
There were only 2 days where tourism officials recommended staying away: Sunday 8/24 and Monday 8/25
Cite Winerist data: 88% of visitors buy wine
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), just last week reported that natural disasters are on the rise. And depending on your market, something akin to a disease outbreak, weather disaster like drought or floods or something like an earthquake could affect your businesses and your tourism viability.
With regard to the wineries I’ve spoken with, many said they were as prepared as they could be with regard to earthquake retrofitting, and because of that, many of the buildings were spared damage.
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), just last week reported that natural disasters are on the rise. And depending on your market, something akin to a disease outbreak, weather disaster like drought or floods or something like an earthquake could affect your businesses and your tourism viability.
With regard to the wineries I’ve spoken with, many said they were as prepared as they could be with regard to earthquake retrofitting, and because of that, many of the buildings were spared damage.
There were only 2 days where tourism official recommended staying away: Sunday 8/24 and Monday 8/25
One person killed and 200 injured
36 businesses had major quake damages and 210 suffered minor damage
While Napa’s restaurants were closed after the quake, all but six reopened in 48 hours
Total damage was estimated at $362.4 million. Of this amount, $80.3 million in damages were reported by the wine industry alone.
Within a week of the earthquake, 90 percent of downtown businesses were up and running, said Craig Smith, executive director of the Downtown Napa Association. A month later, business was at 95 percent of normal.
Napa Valley Vintners quickly established a $10 million earthquake relief fund.
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), just last week reported that natural disasters are on the rise. And depending on your market, something akin to a disease outbreak, weather disaster like drought or floods or something like an earthquake could affect your businesses and your tourism viability.
With regard to the wineries I’ve spoken with, many said they were as prepared as they could be with regard to earthquake retrofitting, and because of that, many of the buildings were spared damage.
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), just last week reported that natural disasters are on the rise. And depending on your market, something akin to a disease outbreak, weather disaster like drought or floods or something like an earthquake could affect your businesses and your tourism viability.
With regard to the wineries I’ve spoken with, many said they were as prepared as they could be with regard to earthquake retrofitting, and because of that, many of the buildings were spared damage.
US yes
Philippines yes
India yes
Indonesia no
Vietnam yes
Afghanistan no
Mexico yes
Japan yes
Pakistan no
Just to show you the randomness of the quake…
Despite losing just about everything personally, she found time to pull an update together that was honest, candid and to her core customers
Let me introduce to you Matthiasson Wines.
They specialize in classic food wine. Offbeat french varieties that are perfect for farm to table food.
Steve Matthiasson describes his winery as creative and nimble and they showed that after the earthquake.
Steve recognized that their story isn’t going to be told by the main wine press.
Made strong relationships with bloggers.
Their recovery story started with a photo Steve took and shared on Twitter. It’s a photo like many others you’ve seen
Media ran our photo
At the time, they don’t know how much wine we lost, but we saw a chance to get a word out about the winery
Surprised at how so many media were turning the media
Phase 1: Show human side with Social media
Phase 2: We’re better off than other people…let’s release a wine to help the public
- Red cross can’t accept donations from the sale of alcohol (Earthquake Cuvee… proceeds to to help victims). Sold $60,000 of wine in a couple of days, which we just shipped out (QUAKE CUVEE)
Between tourism and agriculture…there are a lot of low paying jobs.
Perception that it was only wealthy people
Perception issue on rich people
Restaurants have dishwasher
Got FEMA money approved.
Napa Vintners Association…steps
Wine world is very anthropic
Encouraging
Wine industry