On Saturday 15th June, "Yellow Duckmarine" saw one of their WW2-era amphibious tourist vehicles sink in the Albert Dock - the second such incident this year - with around 30 passengers on board. No-one was injured but lots of media coverage. The press does like a good sinking.
On Sunday 16th June, 39 people (25 of whom were children) were stranded 20 feet in the air on a Chessington World of Adventures theme park ride for three hours after a technical fault caused an automatic fail-safe system to bring the ride to a controlled stop. No-one was injured but lots of media coverage and Sky News was there with a 'Ride Terror' headline.
The owners of the Yellow Duckmarine, Pearlwide Ltd, posted a statement on the home page of the attraction's website. If they scrolled down, anyone thinking of booking a (land-only!) ride would have read the following:
"Following the incident involving Quacker 1, we are working closely with our regulatory body, The Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Merseyside Police. The craft involved in the incident holds a valid passenger carrying certificate.The craft has now been recovered and following consultation with MCA it has been taken to a place of safe and secure storage in-order-that a full investigation can take place. That will continue tomorrow morning. Our team followed their emergency response procedure, ensuring the safe disembarkation of passengers on board. We were aided in this regard by a number of canal boat owners berthed in Salthouse Dock to whom we would like to express our thanks. We would also like to express our thanks to the emergency services and the Albert Dock Security team onsite for their immediate and exemplary response. We will continue to provide full cooperation with MCA and Merseyside Police. We are pleased that all of the passengers who were taken to hospital as a precaution, have now been released."
Chessington issued a statement confirming that there were no injuries and apologised to those affected:
"At 4.06pm the Rameses Revenge at Chessington World of Adventures Resort in Surrey experienced a technical problem. This resulted in the automatic fail-safe system bringing the ride to a controlled stop. Experienced resort staff were on site immediately to assist with guest care. No guests were injured in the incident. A small number of people were on the ride at the time and the resort's engineers worked with the emergency services implementing well-rehearsed procedures to ensure their comfort and safe removal from the ride. We are very sorry for any discomfort our guests experienced during the delay."
Compare and contrast. Yellow Duckmarine's statement was defensive (we have a certificate!) and the recovery of the craft was deemed a more important fact to note than the welfare of the passengers who get no apology but are I am sure delighted that the company is so pleased they have been released from hospital. Do they have PR support? A crisis plan? You would hope so given the nature of the service but I doubt it on this performance.
Fair play to the Yellow Duckmarine - they have been swift and transparent. But their tone and focus has been wrong and given this is the second sinking they have suffered, they can anticipate some business consequences arising from the 'multi-agency' investigations that have been launched and reputation loss among customers who clearly aren't highly valued.
Merlin's statement on the other hand is all soothing and professional (an 'automatic fail-safe' that did its job, 'well rehearsed procedures', 'safe removal' of guests from the ride) although there was some spin in there that would make Malcolm Tucker blush (apologising for guest discomfort during "the delay" - that is the three hours they spent stranded aloft!).
And that seems to have been the limit of their PR around the issue. For Chessington/ Merlin, it's a calm "business as usual", 'taking it in our stride' approach from this trusted brand. This trust gives them the benefit of the doubt and - given that there were no injuries - permission to choose not to highlight the issue or actions taken on either of their websites or twitter feed. Chessington may not have tweeted about the incident but it should surely have responded to a customer who had a child trapped on the ride - see below. Note that a journalist from BBC Surrey found her though and sought to contact her for a quote:
Andrew Caesar-Gordon
