case study

The Big Day

Picture this: The sun rises above the horizon, releasing rays of blue and pink light that whisk across the ocean and spill onto the beautifully manicured greens of the resort hotel's championship golf course. Against the backdrop of the crashing surf and pleas of hungry gulls, you can also hear the sounds of morning stirring at the resort hotel. Car doors slamming, muffled voices sharing greetings and farewells, china and silver clashing, and the squeaking wheels of fully laden carts, each heading off to its appointed area under the guiding hand of one of many hotel staff who have arrived before most guests are awake.

Today is a big day. The Association of Amalgamated Professionals (AAP) will open its 35th Annual Congress with an evening reception, and, before the day is done, 1,900 guests and hundreds of vendors will have descended on this resort hotel. Since there were growing concerns about the image conveyed by using apparently glitzy venues, the venue eliminated the word resort from its name. This was done after the contract was signed.

Todd Cliver, Convention Services Manager for the hotel, convenes a last-minute meeting for the hotel's team handling the Annual Congress. Todd has worked tirelessly for nearly nine months, when the account was turned over from the Sales and Marketing Department of the hotel, coordinating all of the plans, wants, and needs of his client,18the association's Senior Meeting Manager, Barbara Tain. Today represents the culmination of hundreds of emails, phone calls, videoconferences, and personal meetings between Todd and Barbara. Todd interacted with every department in the hotel. Barbara worked closely with AAP staff and volunteers, worked with other vendors, and supervised AAP support staff for the AAP's 35th Annual Congress.

Donna Miller, Director of Sales and Marketing, whose department was responsible for contracting thisthe largest meeting the hotel will have ever managedreports on her client's last-minute changes and concerns, all meticulously logged since her client, Barbara Tain, arrived two days ago. David Stern, Front Desk Manager, recaps the latest report on expected room occupancy and on the timing and numbers of anticipated arrivals. Throughout the day, he will continue to check with his staff to ensure that there will be adequate (and contracted) numbers of front desk clerks to support the check-in flow, bell staff to manage the deluge of luggage and golf clubs, and door staff, valet parkers, concierge and guest services staff, and housekeeping services.

David Fenner, Director of Catering, provides his final status report, commenting on the readiness of the kitchen and banquet staff to serve the equivalent of almost 12,000 meals and untold gallons of juice, milk, coffee, tea, soda, and alcoholic beverages over the next three days. In addition, the hotel's outlets (restaurants and lounges) expect a much higher than average volume and have planned for supplies and personnel accordingly.

Other hotel staff members report to the Director of Sales and the Convention Services Manager. These include those involved with recreation (golf, tennis, health club, and pool), maintenance, security, and accounting. Even the animal handlers, who work with the parrots, an attraction for guests as they enter the property, want to ensure there are only healthy, well-behaved birds to greet the guests.

This one convention has already impacted, and will impact, every area of the hotel's operations. Armed with all this information, Todd leaves for his final preconference meeting (pre-con) with Barbara Tain.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Jane Lever steps onto Concourse B of the Philadelphia International Airport, her airline-boarding pass, e-ticket receipt with its special meeting-discount price, and a US government-issued photo ID firmly in her grasp. She has checked her luggage, making sure it is locked with only the TSA-approved locks for a possible security search. She scans the bank of monitors for her flight information. Before her day ends, she will have touched down at two other airports, eaten one airline snack, grabbed a candy bar on her way through a change of planes at another airport, made numerous cell phone calls, bought a newspaper and a few magazines, and paid for a taxi to the hotel. Around the country, 1,899 other professionals, just like Jane, will do the same thing and travel to the same place for the same purposea meeting.

In the hotel's destination city, Kathy Sykes, the Owner and President of Skylark Destination Management Company (DMC), is already at her office reviewing final arrangements for ground transportation for VIPs and off-site events, event theme preparations, and entertainment for the AAP meeting. Kathy has already received two complaints from the manager of the headliner rock star booked for tonight's reception: The entertainer wants only chilled glasses for his orange juice, which he expects to be freshly squeezed in his suite, and can only get dressed if he is provided with navy blue towels for his after-shower rubdown. Kathy, of course, will ensure compliance with these requests; she wants to avoid any problems before tonight's event.

With a thunderstorm threatening for tomorrow afternoon, Kathy's mind is also already racing about alternatives for the golf tournament. She knows the golfers can play in the rain, but a thunderstorm would endanger their safety.

Jack Ardulosky, a Senior Technical Engineer for an audiovisual company, pulls into the hotel's delivery area while completing his mental checklist for final site review, satellite link integrity, picture clarity, and sound quality. With three global broadcasts and webcasts, he will have little room for error. He sees the florist unloading the last of the fresh floral arrangements and makes a note to himself that leaves and petals can cause just as much of a viewing obstruction as meeting room columns. He scans the area around him for a parking spot since not much is available with all the trucks and vans unloading the trade show booths. Jack notices the rising ambient temperature and expects a long, hot day. He will feel better if he can find parking in the shade, even if he must walk a greater distance.

Barbara Tain, the Senior Meeting Manager for the association, wipes the beginning of fatigue from her eyesshe has already been on site for two days, and her constant checking of details has not allowed her to sleep as well as she would have likedand continues her walk-through of the registration area, information center, and cyber caf, en route to a meeting with Todd Cliver and David Fenner, ensuring the meeting space will be appropriately set for delivery of the education critical to the meeting's objectives. Having eaten just a few bites of her breakfast during a meeting with association executives and key committee members, she will still be late to her meeting with Cliver and Fenner because of last-minute details and concerns from the meeting with association staff and volunteers.

Only half glancing at the space around her, she again reviews her lengthy checklist: speaker and trainer arrivals and needs, banquet event orders (BEOs), transportation schedules, badges, staffing, centerpiece design and delivery, phone and data lines, computers and printers, Wi-Fi bandwidth, exhibitor booth setup, VIP procedures, concerns about tomorrow's weather, special check-in processes, audiovisual equipment, opening production rehearsal times and needs, PowerPoint files, handouts, arrangements19for participants with disabilities including those who have specified food allergies, and amenities for VIPsher mind is crowded with details.

With all this and more going through her mind, her most dominant thought is, "What could go wrong over the next three days: weather; delayed arrivals; delayed departures; the illness, or worse, death, of a participant, vendor, or speaker; or a natural disaster like an earthquake? How prepared am I? Is the hotel, our vendors, and off-site venues ready to respond quickly and effectively?" The fact is, although it is almost never apparent to a meeting participant, some things may not proceed as planned. The meeting planner and CSM are never more important than at that moment when a crisis must be anticipated and then averted.

It Is Opening Day at Last, and Everything Is in Motion

It is the end of the first day of the AAP's 35th Annual Congress, which Barbara Tain refers to as the Annual or Annual Meeting, and so far all has gone well.

Barbara will have had formal, prescheduled meetings with Todd Clive. Barbara will also have spoken with Todd and many others who work for the hotel via radio (walkie-talkie) and/or mobile device, as well as by chance and scheduled meetings. These talks include a review of banquet checks with various departments, one of which will include accounting. Barbara will have talked with those on the AAP staff and in volunteer leadership, and with outside vendors. She will also check the weather many times on her smart phone, television, radio, and, if there is one, the newspaper. Barbara will have eaten on the run, tried to find a few minutes to check office voice mail and email, and, through it all, kept a smile on her face, even while her feet hurt.

At the end of the day, she will review her notes and check room sets for the next morning's sessions and crawl into bed for a few hours of sleep before it all begins again.

When the final curtain closes on the AAP's 35th Annual Congress, Barbara Tain will be one of the last to leave the hotel. Before leaving for the airport to fly home, she will review all the master account charges, conduct a post-convention (post-con) meeting with the property staff and her vendors, and make notes for next year's meeting. Once back in the office, she'll work with the vendor companies that conducted the evaluations, review all the bills, and ensure timely payment, and write thank you notes.

Face-to-face meetings will continue because there is a need for human interaction. These meetings and events will succeed because they are enhanced by virtual audiences who add to the energy and diversity prior to, during, and after the meeting or event. (Think Twitter and the hashtags being used now for meetings, and envision even greater involvement in the future.)

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Questions

1. List the stakeholders involved with this event. (5 marks)
2. List the responsibilities that each stakeholder has to ensure the event is a success. (5 marks)
3. Consider the risk factors that the event planner must be prepared to handle. Name 5 risk factors for this event and how you would manage them. (5 marks)