stevenagesaint

It is interesting (and i really do not mean any disrespect or upset when I say interesting) to read the Aussie media reports and the European reports in to this tragedy. Some on social media are saying that Dreamworld should not re-open, but after the smiler tragedy at Alton Towers (the UK's largest theme park) that was shut for 5 days and the ride for 9 months, on top of that Merlin shut ALL rides from the same manufacturer across all their parks over Europe. What I have read / seen (and again this is only in press via the net) is Ardent leisure have not really handled this at all well. This was clearly shown at the Ardent met a press conference. Merlin Entertainment (who own Alton Towers, Legoland, Sealife Centres etc) controlled the media and kept information flowing and debunked an awful lot of misinformation, on top of that they had senior staff at the hospitals helping the family members of the victims. Some people saw this as risk as normally at corporate level people hide behind laywers. If you google how Merlin handled the crash, you will see a completely different approach to how Ardent have handled this. If you take Merlins approach there was empathy to the family, there was support to families and staff at alton towers. Unfortunately Merlin saw how tour operator Thomas Cook handled a major incident badly and that distress that it caused, so maybe they had that to look at as poor crisis management. Unfortunatly it seems Ardent have / are doing this poorly, what should come first is families of ALL involved. In the case of the smiler crash (and I am sorry to keep using this as an example but it is comparison) a director made the point on focusing on the people involved. The CEO (Nick Varney) came out early on and did press conferences quickly and again focus on the families. At the end of all of this lessons were learned and in the Smilers crash it was human error that caused it. It is still early days on Dreamworld, but from what is being reported / and shown in the media (and I may be wrong being a pom) but it looks like Ardent are not handling this at all well. To have a reporter give you the families telephone number is extremely poor and looks like poor management. Dreamworld is an iconic park one of those parks whose names is famous world wide and I really do hope answers are found. My thoughts are with all affected by this.