Bob Evans Restaurant Case Assignment - Carnival Cruise Line...

Carnival Cruise Line Case Assignment
MBA 635: Marketing and News Strategy
Bellevue University
Professor Ann Marie Johnson
August 2nd, 2015
MARINA BURSON

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Carnival Cruise Line
Case Recap
Carnival Cruise Line is considered the largest cruise line available, with 102 ships with an
affordable price tag. This cruise line is considered the ‘fun-ship’, family oriented, and perfect
for those first time cruisers. Over the years, Carnival has suffered several mishaps; including
fires, wrecks, pirate take over, and even deaths. Carnival is learning the hard way what should or
should not be said or done in such tragedies. The media has played a huge role in how the public
reacts to these events. Carnival Cruise Line has used Social Media to aggressively report
situations as they are happening, with both positive and negative reactions. In order to better
serve their customers; this company has made personnel changes between crisis, generous
restitutions, and public apologies to their patrons. With their bad reputation growing, Carnival
Cruise Line is trying to restore faith, bring back past cruisers, and attract new passengers, in
order to continue to be the world’s largest and best cruise line.
Problem Identification
Once the world hears about accidents, fires, and deaths aboard a cruise ship, their attitude
about that particular line becomes tainted. The problem using Social Media is the amount of
people that see it and all the negative remarks that come with it. Keeping the public informed as
things occur from the staff itself is a great way of staying ahead of the media; but the downfall to
that is the perception the public will have concerning how the media itself reacts and reports to it.
Accidents happen, especially with large vessels such as Carnival Cruise Line. How these
catastrophes are handled by the staff and media can affect the reputation of the company and any
future profit. Carnival Cruise Line has had many problems with their ships, their staff
accountability and accidents occurring while at sea. Restitutions, apologies and crisis training
(or the lack thereof) have attributed to the negative emotions from passengers.

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Carnival Cruise Line
Root Problem Components
Carnival Cruise Lines have had several incidents that have become big news. Missing
people, person overboard, and fires have been among the many. One issue weighing heavy with
these accidents is how they were handled by the staff and emergency personnel. The public felt
more needed to be done during the crisis, and that management was irresponsible and
mishandled the situations. Along those lines, staff and personnel seem to have been lacking in
emergency training, compassion, and sensibility, and panicked during the crisis. Human error