Discussion Questions In August 2005, a suicide bomber exploded a bomb in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Amman, Jordan. Although thousands of miles away, this emergency resulted in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, California, where one of the victims had lived. His widow filed a lawsuit against Global Hyatt Corporation and Hyatt International Corporation, alleging that the hotel was negligent in protecting guests from foreseeable violence (Hotel Online, 2007). In your opinion, was the lawsuit justified? If the victim had been part of a meeting group at the hotel, could the meeting professional and sponsoring organization be sued for negligence as well? What risk management techniques should be implemented by both facilities and meeting professionals in locations that are known to be prone to increased violence and/or terrorism.

In april 2010 the eyjafjallajökull volcano in iceland erupted. Although it did not cover any meeting venues with lava, it did affect many meetings, especially those in certain areas of Europe at, or around the time of, the eruption. The extensive ash cloud caused by the eruption grounded airplane for several days. Hundreds of flights were cancelled because they could neither fly into nor out of many major European meeting destinations. Thus, meeting attendees were stranded in European cities or were unable to get meetings that started after the eruption. To make matters worse for those attendees staying in European hotels, guests who were able to drive to their destinations were demanding but attendees who could not get out had nowhere to go (Hatch & Kovaleski, 2010).

 

• If you had been the meeting professional of a group de- tained in a destination for several extra days, what would you have done to assure the wellbeing of your attendees?
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• If you had been the meeting professional of a meeting whose destination was unreachable because of the effects of the volcano, what contingency plan would you have implemented to minimize both financial loss to your organization and inconvenience to your attendees? 
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• What specific risk-management techniques protect both meeting professionals and facilities against financial loss in the event of this type of natural disaster?