Mumbai Attacks: A Business Response to Terror
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This document summarizes a travel company's response to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. The key points are: 1. When the attacks occurred, the company assembled an incident response team but initially made incorrect assumptions that their clients were not near the attacks. 2. They soon learned that one client, Mrs. Jones, was staying at one of the attacked hotels. The response team then initiated their full emergency protocols. 3. The response team struggled with a lack of preparedness, including inadequate communication tools and unorganized work spaces. However, they were able to safely assist all clients, including Mrs. Jones, in being evacuated. 4. The document reviews lessons learned, such as the need to
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Mumbai Attacks: A Business Response to Terror
- 1. Mumbai Attacks A Business Response to Terror
- 7. Littleton – (me) Toronto Australia - Operations Ground Handler India Office Background Information Lugano
- 8. Notification
- 12. War Room
- 14. Communication Guide states this: Incident had this:
- 21. Going Home
- 24. And so on Then the rescue – storming by the troops
- 25. Rescue Mission
Notes de l'éditeur
- Today, the group of companies, consists of more than 30 tourism and aviation businesses, serviced by more than 5,000 professionals. The companies’ escorted and independent vacations offer nearly 10,000 departures and almost 300 different itineraries, covering more than 65 countries on six continents. Combined, the travel brands carry nearly 500,000 passengers in a normal year, making the Globus family of brands the leading tour operators worldwide.
- Like most companies and businesses outside of safety, health and emergency, the Globus family of brands does not staff a dedicated incident response team whose job is solely to manage emergency or crisis situations. Instead members from around the office have been tagged to fulfill certain roles within a team titled “incident response.” I am one of those people. The Globus family of brands incident response team consists of the following roles: Incident Controller, Incident Controller Assistant, Policy Manager, Company Spokesperson, Client Welfare, Traveling Team Manager, Communication Coordinator There are also several support roles that fluctuate based on breath of incident (staff welfare, systems teams, facilities teams, public inquiry teams, traveling teams, etc…) We purposely renamed ourselves the Incident Response Team to avoid negative stereotyping of “Crisis Response Teams.” This was done for outward branding – Crisis sounds critical, fatal perhaps, very serious. When you advise a travel agent the “crisis response team” is working on something, the natural reaction is to become more fearful. Incident is softer, more socially acceptable. Not all incidents are crisis’. Our definition of incidents and a sample of “incidents”. Not all incidents involve personal harm. The team is also on the watch for events which can damage branding. For instances, the volcanic ash – no one was injured. There were many travel delays, but there was not a big concern for personal injury. However, not managing client expectations and being available to them for answers and assistance could have massive implications on the brands, especially with the emergence of social media
- Our company is both and operating office (we operate tour packages) and a selling office (we sell tour packages operated by other offices around the world.) Our Incident team is a work in progress and we continue to try and improve our preparation for an event which may negatively impact our business. We rely on the 5 P’s – Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. In addition to a guidance manual, experience and leadership, we have learned over the course of many years that no two incidents are the same or can they be managed the same. Each will throw in its own twists and turns and no one checklist or preparation guide will suffice in all situations. We have learned, and will share with you today examples, that we should make no assumptions during an incident (which is easier said that done). And when you think you have everything in line, learn to expect the unexpected.
- Responses to incidents in our business are on many levels: Protect the welfare of the clients Protect the brand Protect the industry
- The purpose of this presentation is to discuss our business’ response to terrorism, exploring their reactions to the Mumbai attacks of 2008. I’ll walk you through the events over 48 hours, reviewing our processes and procedures. Some worked well. Some left room for improvements. At the end I will share our debriefing notes to provoke further thinking.
- A little background on the offices involved in this incident. Littleton office, where I work, was the selling office in this incident. Passengers had purchased our vacation package through their travel agent. Australia office – once our sale is complete, we send the reservation information to this office to secure the hotels, the transfers, sightseeing, meals, etc… They work with a local ground handler who really is responsible for the operations of the tour. The local ground handler supplies the Tour Director, manages the logistics with tour motorcoaches and sightseeing. In this incident, the local ground handler also works with other tour operators, who were also impacted by this incident. Our office in Toronto is also a selling office who works solely with travel agents in Canada. Because they are a smaller office, and utilize our systems for information, reservations and accounting, they also work through us for most incidents. However, they are responsible for their own passengers and ensuring the requirements are being met for their passengers, agents and local laws. India Office – we also have a small selling office in India that is responsible for the relationships and bookings of clients from India and other surrounding countries into our products. They also utilize our systems. Of note, for this incident they had no travelers with us. Lugano – this is our headquarters office. Our shareholders work from this office and mostly oversee the operations of our European tours. In an incident in other parts of the world, they are monitoring the situation but the operating and selling offices are in control. Littleton Office – distributor Contact with passengers & passengers emergency contacts Contact with agents Local media updates Contact with insurance company Australia Office – operator Contact with local suppliers Contact with Tour Directors Local Ground Handler Responsible for logistics planning on site Direct contact with clients Toronto Office – distributor Same as Littleton, but work through Littleton on communications India Office Remote selling office reporting to Littleton. No operations Lugano – Switzerland headquarters Shareholders of organization
- Close your eyes and picture this: It is the day before Thanksgiving, 12:30 in the afternoon. You are in your office enjoying the peace and quiet because most staff have left for the four day holiday weekend. Only a skeleton crew remain You are full from lunch and looking at the clock wondering how long you should also stay before cutting out early to be with your family (or more likely going home to frantically clean because everyone is coming over in the morning to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with you.) Life is good. Things are quiet. The four-day weekend and black Friday shopping make you giddy inside. Suddenly this pops up on your screen. First response – “seriously?? It’s a holiday weekend for crying out loud.” Per our manual, and through experience, we know this is step 1 in the lifecycle of an incident – NOTIFICATION. What to do next….
- Remember my statement earlier – make no assumptions. Therefore I won’t assume we have no travelers in the area (wouldn’t we be lucky enough to go unscathed in this). So, being the incident controller I dropped what I was doing and immediately looked into our reservation system to determine if we were operating any tours in India. This was step 2 of the incident response cycle – Situation Assessment. Do we have any tours in the area? Yes – one. The Secrets of India - which operates an extension to Mumbai. Date? Does the date of operations match? Yes! Our clients are in currently in Mumbai and scheduled to leave tomorrow. By now, I am starting to get a little worried. Terrorist attacks in the news, passengers in the area, limited resources around to call on. This is not looking good. And to top is off – Thanksgiving is still tomorrow. And the office will be closed for four days. Next is my research on the information posted in news reports (AP, BBC, MSNBC, CNN, Drudge Reports, etc…)- What hotels were mentioned? Oh yes, Taj Hotel, Ramada and the Oberoi. What hotel do we use? The TRIDENT! Yay – it’s not our hotel. Since it is late in the evening and many passengers have flights early the next day, they should be asleep in their beds and out of harms way. So implement routine next step – communication.
- Email drafted and sent. Nothing to be concerned with – staff all had my phone number to call if someone really wanted to know everything was ok. Passengers were not at the reported attacked hotel so I just needed to ask our Australia operations offices to check in with our clients to make sure they were cared for during this event and that they got on their plane ok tomorrow to return home. I would recommend we secure their rooms for another night just in case there were airport delays and they couldn’t get out. We would manage any inquires coming into our office with standard statements and we would ask the Tour Director for a little more attention to the group. Since there were only 5 people in the group, we could also call their travel agents to let them know we were aware of the situation and would be looking after their clients. Being in Littleton, Colorado and a terrorist incident occurring half way around the world, it was easy for us to not feel the full impact of the situation – at least not immediately. It seemed the situation would not directly impact us; perhaps our industry may suffer a little, but that was something to think about later. The current streaming news grabs your attention from a curiosity perspective, but not a life in danger perspective. Quite honestly, they emails & phone calls I received in the first 30 minutes were more concerned with the impact to travel in general (would people be afraid to travel, would they only be afraid to travel to these “exotic countries”, will my tour still be operating) then about it ever impacting our passengers.
- Within minutes of sending out the email that we had no information on any passengers impacted, and before I could action next steps with our Australia operating office, we received a call from a Travel Agent who had spoken to the daughter of one of our passengers. The passenger (Mrs. Jones) had asked her daughter to contact us to see if we knew where her Tour Director may be. The information was quoted as “there are people hiding under beds.” Huh? Was she watching the news? She must be watching the news to be aware of what was going on and knowing people were in hiding? Maybe she was afraid that the terrorists would come to her hotel. We should to help her. She is scared. How close is our hotel to the Taj, Ramada or the Oberoi – the Trident? (Point in case – if my investigation had been thorough, I would have already known this.) Google – ‘Trident hotel location in Mumbai’. What – the Trident and the Oberoi are attached to each other?!! They share a lobby!! Ok – now it is time to action Incident Response. Call the team – go to the war room. At the time, the only way to immediately get a team involved was via email or phone calls. Since then, I have implemented the use of Instant Messaging to action immediate alerts.
- As an incident response team, we have a “war” room pre-established for Incident Response. It is a standard conference room, but in the corner is a filing cabinet filled with tablets of paper, pencils, pens, tape, staplers, current brochures, extra incident response manuals (one for each senior role), fax machine, extra phone, dry erase markers. The room has two full walls of white board. It also has an overhead projector hooked up to a computer on a table in the corner, a TV connected to satellite stations. Multiple phone, electrical, and internet outlets are available through “pop-ups” in the middle of the conference room. Incident response can use this room at any time regardless of the current meeting in progress. Prepared for incident response – usable space when there is no incident Locked filing cabinet with Incident Response materials Tablets of paper (24) Pens & Pencils (5dz) Tape (4 roles – with 2 dispensers) Staplers (2 with 1 box extra staples) Current brochures Fax machine (1)) Dry erase markers (1 set) Phone (1) Extra copies of incident response manuals (6) TV (with satellite connections) Main computer with overhead projector Full wall of white board Computer jacks and power outlets Additional phone outlets
- Learning – do not make assumptions. Do not assume that because the filing cabinet that is designated for Incident Response use only is really only accessed by the Incident response team. Just because supplies where there years ago when you last updated the inventory does not mean those supplies are still there. Make no assumptions – supplies that are there year round tend to get used when meetings are in progress; especially when the cabinet key is held by the executive assistant right outside the room.
- In general, we have a protocol of communication that a selling office (us) is to communicate with an operating office (in this case the Operations office and management was in Australia). The operating office is to communicate with local suppliers and handlers. First unexpected – we could not reach our operations office. Though we have emergency phone contacts for management in Australia, we could not get through to them. It was 4:00 AM in the morning when we begin our calls to them. Second unexpected – the local ground handler could also not reach Australia operations, so they contacted our operations Vice President via an email address they had on file (they had met our VP at a previous conference). Determining waiting for Australia and the proper protocol would take too long and we needed immediate information, we called the ground handler ourselves. Information was sketchy but the ground handler advised there were multiple terrorist attacks. Phone lines at the hotel were down. A fire was in the lobby. Room numbers of the passengers were not known (this was a surprise to us as check-in is to be managed by the Tour Directors and documentation should be available of the room numbers). Three hotels (per the news) were involved: Taj, Ramada & Oberoi/ Trident (our hotel). It was confirmed that the Oberoi and Trident are separate hotels but are joined by an interconnecting lobby. Terrorist were inside and outside the hotel. 25 staff had been evacuated. Terrorists were pulling people out of rooms looking for Americans. Terrorists retrieved a manifest from reception and were searching rooms. Army has been called in. We relayed information about our passenger call in. The ground handler advised that is any other clients called in, the best advice is to stay put and hide as this is what the local authorities were advising. Hotel phones should not be used as they were being monitored by the terrorists. During the call – the incident controller assistant had reached the operations office but they had no additional information yet. The ground handler provided the phone number of the transfer company who was scheduled to pick-up clients and take them to the airport about 1 hour prior to the start of the attacks. We called this transfer company and they were able to confirm two of our passengers were picked up and delivered to the airport. The flight was on schedule.
- When working in foreign countries in the travel business, we advise all passengers to review US Gov’t travel information and advice. This includes registering their vacation with local embassies. I anticipate less than 5% actually do this. Therefore - the contact information for clients traveling is us. Most travelers do not have international cell phones (access issues, powering issues, inconvenience – why do they need –they are with us after all). This created a problem for us when the hotel phone lines were down. There was no means to get information to the clients, or from the clients. (At this point we did not know how Mrs. Jones had been in contact.) Emergency Contact information: Another snag. We did not have emergency contact information and therefore were unable to reach out to family of travelers with any information. We needed to collect the emergency contact information from travel agents. The travel agent is responsible for the communications with the clients and we have always followed this policy to avoid any direct ‘marketing’ concerns. Tour Directors are asked to collect this information, but often it is not done so, or it is collected manually and just stored with the Tour Director’s tour files, which are carried with them throughout the tour. Since the passengers were on an extension, there was no Tour Director. Without these items, we can not contact the clients, and we cannot contact the clients’ emergency contacts. It had a little feeling of helplessness.
- Communications is pretty standard protocol in our incidents. We worry about incoming calls as well as media / or social media posts. Social media was not as hot of a topic as it is now, so we were more concerned with a consistent message about the attacks and our operational involvement. Out PR firm with our Communication coordinator drafted a statement available to Incident Response. Outbound calling to agents of the 5 passengers. We knew we needed someone who was good at communicating to speak with agents. However, with it being 2:00 before a holiday, staff selection was minimal. We decided a senior executive should make the calls. Incoming calls from relatives: We already had the first call in. Statements were provided to the staff remaining and they were instructed to contact their manager is anyone called in requesting information. However, we would not provide the information without credential verification. Consulates – this came from operations. The consulates wanted the passenger phone numbers, but we did not have them. However we did contact them to advise of the passengers we knew were staying at the hotel. In the end, we found ourselves waiting and watching news channels, looking for any information that may be available. The scrolling news updates provided limited information. Ground handlers were making their ways to hotels to try and work with local authorities on information about our passengers. Every phone number that popped up on newscasts, we called. In the end, reliable information was limited. Even trying to contact a local Oberoi rep in New York left us with little information.
- If our passengers were outside of the hotel, we were unsure how they would know whom to contact for assistance. Most likely, if this were to happen, the clients would be without their items in the hotel, which could mean no money, contact information in their client documents, etc… Our discussion switched to “how will we find them”? This is where we had to rely on our ground handlers to action their incident response teams. We knew they were already making their way to the various hotels and locations attacked. Local authorities had limited information. If they were in their rooms we would not know it. We did not want to call the rooms as the news reports were advising not to as the terrorists were monitoring the switchboards to know what rooms had people in them. The local supplier had not secured the room assignment from the hotel, so they were not able to help. The staff at the hotel were not around to provide a rooming list. If the events continued, would the passengers have food and water. There was concern that we could not communicate with these people. Worst case the clients were hostages and/or deceased. This was a situation, that when we finally started discussing, I believe sank in for the team how real it was. These people would most certainly need counseling (the others would as well, but this was more extreme), would potentially be retained by authorities, and could have trauma for years to come. If our clients were among the dead, how would we find out? How would we communicate with next of kin (which we had no information for)? In all cases, we considered and planned for the need to send a “traveling team” to Mumbai for our clients. One small issue – India requires a visa which takes times to secure. Any delay in having personnel on site negatively impacts the clients, and the brand as it pertains to response time. All these scenarios were documented and communicated to our operating office (trying to reestablish the proper communication protocol) to work with the ground handler on “what next”.
- As luck would have our way, one of our clients became our inside source for information. A phone call two hours into the ordeal came from the daughter (who had received our direct line number from the travel agent) of Mrs. Jones. She wanted to provide us with an update. Mrs. Jones was in touch with daughter and had information, including room numbers and status of two of our other passengers. Some information we gathered from the daughter: The room number of Mrs. Jones The room number of two Canadian passengers traveling with us (but we did not know which two) Mrs. Jones walked the hotel stairwells to go from the Canadian passengers room to her room (6 floors difference) when she got tired. Phones lines were indeed down in the hotel Mrs. Jones was an adventurous person. She had an extensive travel background. She was in good spirits though tired from the ordeal. Her family was relieved to speak with her and surprising to all of us, the family was very calm. Mrs. Jones seemed to be the social type, calling her daughter and moving around the hotel. The problem was, she provided a perspective that falsely eased our minds. If she was walking around, then horrible news reports were not that bad correct? There weren’t terrorists running around the hotel or pulling Americans from rooms. Correct? At the same time we had these thoughts, we also feared for her as we had more information than she did. How should we communicate that to her (to stay quiet in her room) without causing more concern than may be necessary. Expect the unexpected. Our “scenario planning” was assumed that if passengers were in their rooms, then they were scared, keeping quiet, perhaps barricading doors or hiding under beds. Unexpectedly, we had a client who was freely wondering the halls and stairwells. We had not planned a scenario for that. Assumption was – we used our frame of reference from what we know from ground handlers and saw on TV. We did not assume a perspective of a resilient client.
- As we waited for more information, we began to think about upcoming departures to India. We knew that 1) people may be more scared to travel to this destination and 2) the government might issue a warning to not travel. With these thoughts in mind, we reviewed the next departure coming in 12 short days. After a short discussion, we decided we would cancel this departure for safety concerns, and to limit exposure to increased security and delays that often follow these events. Now, we need to action the cancellation as quickly as possible. It was now 3:00 MST which meant east coast Travel Agencies were already closed. Some may be open on Friday, but most not until the following week. We decided to call all agencies, closed or not, and advise of the cancellation. Statements were developed by the communications team and distributed. Our checklists did not include communicating with our tour operators. However, having an experienced team, we were able to work outside the checklist. We began an outbound calling campaign to the CEOs/Management of competitors. From these conversations, we learned of other passengers on other vacations who were in the Taj hotel. One had been in communication with a Tour Director staying there, who was hiding under his bed. The ground handler working with us was also working with this other company. We began to look at news reports in new ways (not a sole focus on one hotel). Our CEO also, during our waiting time, had reached out to our managing director of our India office She was actually in Mumbai and was concerned but leaving that evening. We had another business development manager in the city. We recommended these individual be available to work with clients once the ordeal was over. We did not think they would be able to assist at the hotels, but perhaps they could get to the airport the following day(s). One question we did not consider, would these be the correct personnel to represent company? Training, personal experience. (I think about the twin towers – I wanted to be with my family, not at work)
- Mrs. Jones received our number and information and called. She provided information that the elevators were out and she was currently in her room. She was concerned about her other Canadian friends, which she provided the room number. She said there were many guy shots on that side of the hotel. She was also concerned about missing her flight at 6:00am in the morning. We had prepared for this and advised we would take care of her flights and continuing activities. Statement later from the client – I hoped I would not run into a terrorist in the stair well! At this point, Mrs. Jones became our inspiration to get through this emotionally. The shock to us was when we finally asked about her cell phone and she said she was calling from the hotel phone. With this knowledge it meant we were doing exactly as authorities had advised not to do, and were potentially putting the client in danger. However, she was also our only inside source of information. Again – we assumed the information from the daughter was accurate
- With no news coming in, and realizing this was going to take some time, we knew we needed to develop the plan for overnight communications. We determined one point person for our offices’ incident response team (the one who would communicate with Operations) throughout the night. We all had access to email via our phones, so we would stay in contact that way, leaving phone calls for urgent situations. Updates would come from operations forward, as they were taking the lead speaking with the local suppliers. We advised the requirements for passenger care and concern to the operations office prior to leaving for the day. This included establishing a Senior representative from the ground handler company to be on site for finding and working with passengers. We had been able to arrange a specific ambulance to be out front of the hotel for our passengers, clearly marked. If we heard from passengers, we would give them this information. And we arranged to have counseling available but in Mumbai and in the US for passengers. Were we premature with thinking all would be ok and passengers would walk out alive?
- At 8:00 PM news reports indicated hostages were being held in the hotel. They were not on the floors in which our passengers were staying, but we also knew we had not been in contact directly with 4 of the 5 passengers. Through Mrs. Jones, we knew she was originally with 2 others but no information from them in 5 hours. Feeling again of nothing we could do but wait for more information. This Mrs. Jones called again. Has received the point contact number from her family. She was staying put. She was eating from the mini-fridge in the room and had taken a shower and packed for her flight. She had our number in case she needed anything. Only after our point person was off the phone with her, did it occur that the local ground handler number should have been provided.
- Good news was finally received at 10:00pm from Canada office Pax on 20 th floor made contact They were in a room with 5 other guests. Not sure which room Passengers sounded fairly calm Passengers felt abandoned as they are not receiving any information or heard anything from the hotel Passengers wished someone would give instructions via a loud speaker or have the police search the hotel Passengers occasionally heard gun fire Passengers had heard that there are terrorist on the 19 th floor (this was making them a bit nervous as very close if true) Passenger’s son had contacted Canadian foreign affairs and advised them of their location We had their cell number
- You watch the events on TV and never seem to have enough information. Fire on the 13 th floor. Fire on the 14 th floor. Which is it? Hostages on the 19 th or the 20 th ? Who were the hostages. Waiting was the hardest part Night moved to morning Updates were frequent, but very little new information Followed up with consulates and local authorities advising of pax names, nationalities, phone numbers and room numbers By 8:00 am next morning we finally heard from last 2 Canadians. They were in in rooms safe, eating from the mini-bar. Local ground handler numbers were provide. Ground handlers has secured new accommodations at hotels near the airport We contacted the pax who had left Mumbai and returned home offering any assistance. Canada media requested statements from our Canada office. Our company spokesperson coached the office through the statement.
- News showed troops lining up to go in. Relatives wanted to call family and advise Naïve to think people would exit and find our ground handler Had one person available at the hotel for our 5 guests. Guests rescued and swiftly separated to go to each embassy We didn’t want to clog phone lines – who would pax call first? Us, local rep, family? Once consulates were finished, posting of names allowed us to find our passengers and take them to the new hotel location. US Consulate had secured an alternate hotel and sent Mrs. Jones there We were able to locate all passengers and had them meet with Senior representatives Relief the situation was over
- Best laid plans must be prepared for the unexpected. Who knew the US representatives would make alternate arrangements.
- The point from the rescue to the final debriefing seemed to go quick and was more in line with what we planned and trained for.
- Two team members in same household – you never get a break.