Carnival CEO lays low

Fifteen people have been confirmed dead and 17 others are still missing while news continues to flow from the Costa Concordia tragedy that will challenge parent company Carnival Corp.'s PR efforts. One piece of news is that there were unregistered passengers onboard, an allegation that subsidiary Costa Cruises denies. The other news is that Costa Cruises' are offering 30% off future cruises to survivors, termed by one passenger as "insulting."

CEO, Micky Arison's management style is to let his business units' leadership do the crisis response heavy lifting. Arison's public responses have been limited to some Twitter posts and via statements in press releases expressing condolences. Some have questioned this stay-in-the-background strategy, given the scope of the accident.

Larry Berg, VP & GM of media and marketing company Valassis, says that the CEO should be front and center in a crisis. "The CEO should be a company's representative to the community, acknowledging the key issues, apologizing to the affected families, telling what is known about the crisis so far and giving a commitment to not letting such an incident happen in the future," says Berg.

Arison and his advisers have chosen to let Costa Cruises CEO Pier Luigi Foschi be that representative. So why hasn't Arison visited the scene? A visit from the CEO would be about more than positive PR—it would be a symbol of the humanity of the company.