Improving Interactions between Meeting Planners and Hotel Employees

Abstract

A study of meeting planners determined that communication, organization, execution, developing relationships, initiative, and crisis management are the key components in the successful delivery of services to the meetings industry. The areas of organization, execution, and professionalism are the most crucial to the success of event management. The most pervasive root causes of negative incidents were training and knowledge lapses, communication failures, and restrictive and rigid policies. Specific problem areas include employee-scheduling policies, lack of vested authority in an available hotel representative, turnover of key employees, outlandish charges by hotel contractors, hotels' focus on profit at the expense of service, hotels' inability to deliver agreed-upon services, and the physical condition or arrangement of meeting rooms. Solutions include involving the conference-services director as soon as possible in the process and training guest-contact employees to deal with groups' problems.