Hospitality Delivery Disaster Recovery: “Get a cookie!“

Evil Erik has recently read somewhere that there is a difference between the disciplines of marketing and sales as well as that a General Manager should be the person in command of the Marketing team.

So what to do in such case, call a meeting and " let them know who's the boss ".

The meeting was scheduled for 2 PM, but unfortunately the

• Sales people are stuck in traffic back to the hotel,
• PR Manager has an important journalist for luncheon and
• Marketing Director is meeting with the owner's daughter,
• discussing " shopping " as preparation for their upcoming trip to the ITB in Berlin.

So Eric ended up with the sales coordinator, the marketing and sales secretaries and the intern from an Overseas University who is assigned to update the database.

After Eric's observations about the tardiness of the marketing team, it was this intern that came up with the " statement of the month ", the M.I.C.E. customer data base is 10 years " old " and does cover only local contacts.

The intern mentioned that at their University they have a course in Leisure and Business Event Management, Leisure Events meaning festivals and sport happenings, Business Events meaning M.I.C.E. events.

Their lecturer, a former VP Marketing of a Hotel Chain, told them that for the Asian MICE suppliers there is only a diminutive base of Incentive, Conference and Exhibition buyers :

• 800 Incentive houses around the world
• 500 International Associations and 1000 Asian Associations
• 200 Exhibition companies

Therefore, the Intern suggests, Eric's hotel should concentrate on those accounts while also learning more about Chasing MICE and the needs of those ( demanding ) customers.

When Eric mentioned this later to the Marketing Director, he was told that she is already very busy doing that, but with all the preparation for the upcoming trip, she would ask her assistant to look into the matter more deeply.....

So said, so done and before long a great discovery was made, the National Tourist Board has scheduled a major M.I.C.E. conference and invited many important buyers to come and speak at their conference, both in plenary as well as in break-out sessions.

The Educational Tracks offered speakers on the 4 disciplines of M.I.C.E. and the Marketing Seminars were delivered by experts from Europe, Australia, North America, India, China Japan and Korea !

Then, surprise, surprise, an even more brilliant idea came to Eric's sharp marketing mind: " let's invite those buyers for a pre- or post convention night in our hotel."

So said, so done, and hurrah, hurrah, the hotel was asked by the NTO to host some of the speakers on the way back after the conference.

The problem was that the date requested was during a weekend and that seriously interfered with both the General Manager's and the Marketing Teams personal life and thus created a mini-crisis.

But handling crisis is what Senior Executives do best and a solution was quickly found, the most junior Sales Manager was made volunteer to have luncheon with those CIPs ( Commercially Important Person ) and the Duty Manager would represent the General Manager.

Incentive Marketing " Day-X " arrived, and, not surprisingly, the crisis turned into a disaster :

• Security guards send the mini bus to the backdoor entrance
• Other coach drivers blocked the back door entrance for 10 minutes
• Luggage porters busy collecting tips from checking-out groups
• Check-in line was full with check-out guests
• Lobby hostesses were busy checking the ceiling
• Receptionist claimed no room available yet
• No supervisors in view to help service recovery
• Senior (? ) Manager walking by with " who cares " attitude

But in the middle of this service delivery disaster, in "storms " the junior Sales Manager who, without introducing himself and/or even welcoming the ( invited ) guests, and takes arrogantly, but inadequately, charge......

He must have read PATA's 4 R guidelines for crisis management and since reduction and readiness failed, he believes to solve the situation through response and recovery by ordering the CIPs to come with him and have luncheon " NOW "!

Having been invited for ( free ) luncheons for 40 years, this " wonderful offer " did not make a very big impression on the CIPs, who had just had a 3 hour bus ride behind them and were more in need of a bathroom than yet another meal .........

This negative attitude of the customer upset the " host " very much and, after a short discussion with the receptionist, who clearly did not think much of this managerial intervention, showed that he had learned a lot from Evil Eric and did a magical act of silent disappearance.

After the invitees finally were able to go the room, the hassles did not stop, because soon the phone started ringing "off the hook " with all kind of calls from the " managers-without-name " brigade and from those that were coincidently too busy to greet the CIPs and never realized that in the meantime they were wasting their time with their insincere apologizes.

The damage had been done and all the efforts to make a good impression were rendered useless in 20 minutes in the lobby.

To make this long saga short, another highlight came during check-out, on the way to the airport, when another " name-less " executive presented the wife of the VIP with a box of cookies !

The impression of " good doggie, get a cookie " came to mind instantly !

The bottom line is that poor Eric's efforts were killed because the Marketing Executives did not care and the Operation Executives of the hotel had no idea, and apparently were not really interested either.

In order to get a return on investment on such a complementary effort, and then get a positive word of mouth effect through such CIPs, Evil Eric should have made sure that his Directors and Managers understand the "Do or Die " rule of MICE marketing :

Marketing ( and Sales ) gets the business, Operational Delivery retains the customers !

And therefore he must get involved himself, even on the weekend ..........

PS :
May I please remind all readers that any resemblance of Evil Erik's expertise and behavior to existing Hospitality Executives is purely coincidental and that described situations and circumstances are ( more or less ) imaginary .....

Bert "Bow-Thai" van Walbeek | Bert "Bow-Thai" van Walbeek has been an Hotelier for 45 years and Marketer of Tourism for 35 years, a Motivator for 20 years, a Master of Disaster for 15 and a Lecturer for 15 years. He is the Founder and the Managing Director of The Winning Edge, ( ) a boutique consulting company, offering marketing audit, sales and service training and consultancy services mainly to the Hospitality & Tourism industries. He is a regular speaker at Hospitality Conferences and at Hotel Companies Senior Executive Meetings both in Asia and in Europe His entertaining and " outside of the nine dots " presentation on " Hotel General Manager, can anybody, everybody, somebody or nobody do this job ? " makes audiences laugh and cry at the same time ! He can be reached at [email protected]