This document analyzes the relationship between event planners and hotels. It discusses how proper training and communication can help prevent issues that arise during events. The document explores two alternatives: 1) Increasing training so staff are cross-trained in multiple departments, which allows them to better handle unexpected problems. However, this could overwork or lose valuable employees. 2) Improving communication so all parties are on the same page about event details to catch mistakes early. While this clarifies expectations, it takes time and messages could still be misunderstood. The document advocates training and communication to build professional relationships and ensure event success.

1. Case Analysis
Event Planners and Hotels
Sarah Ann Kinser
10/17/2014

2. 1
Introduction
It’s a tale as old as time… that’s how many fairy tales begin. If someone were to
ask a bride how she feels about her soon-to-be husband, their engagement, and her
wedding, she would say “it’s like a fairy tale”. Many girls growing up dream and crave
this fairy tale feeling when they are getting married. The brides know exactly what they
want; they just don’t always know how to make it happen. That’s when event planners
come into the picture. They know how to work with the hotels (where the bride has
chosen to get married) to create her dream wedding.
By the bride handing all the responsibility over tothe event planner, she believes
she has no more to worry about with her wedding. She has given the event planners all
physical control over the set up and decorating to her wedding. Some weddings go off
without a hitch, but every now and then, the bride has to deal with issues and fight to get
exactly what she wants on her day. While this may seem like the bride is being a
“bridezilla”, it is not always the case. Many times the fault lies with the event planner or
the hotel and not with the overbearing bride. In these cases, the companies need to
figure out where the fault actually occurs to help prevent them in the future.
This case study will focus on the event planners and hotels and ways that they can
both affect the events that are presented tothem. The purpose of this paper is to explore
the strengths while considering the weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of alternative
ways to enhance the relationship between the event planners and hotels.

3. 2
Situation Analysis
Rutherford and Umbreit (1993) collected research for three years from event
planners and their struggles with hotels. Not all of the struggles these planners faced
were devastating to the events themselves; some of them were great building
experiences for both the planner and hotel staff (Rutherford & Umbreit, 1993). They
found that once a particular hotel or planner ran into an incident, they were more likely
to know how to fix it the next time they ran into it. They took these incidents as learning
experiences and grew from it no matter if it was a good incident or not.
During many incidents, hotel employees were able to put their previous
knowledge into use. This is seen mostly by the employees of the San Francisco hotel
back in 1989 (Rutherford & Umbreit, 1993). They were not the slightest bit jumbled
when it came to the earthquake. They step up to make sure that their guests were being
taken care of in the best way possible.
With the good as comes the bad. They found that some hotels do not consider all
events when it comes to planning every event. Some events ended up being moved from
their desired room to make way for either bigger events or ones that were more
favorable to the hotel; other events got booked next to louder events that made hearing
anything completely impossible (Rutherford & Umbreit, 1993). Both are big fears of a
couple planning their wedding. They want all of their guests to be able to see and
understand what is happening during the ceremony and during the reception. By being
moved to a smaller room, they run the risk of losing their dance space or even worse
tables.

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While many individual event planners and hotel staff members automatically
know what to do, some still lack the basic knowledge needed in order to make an event a
success when hard times hit. When they freeze up, the event and the company can suffer
from it. Ways to prevent this are discussed in the next section.
Problem Definition
The previous mentioned information are major issues (good and bad) that come
up on a normal basis for event planners and hotels. All of these issues could be resolved
with following one simple idea. Rutherford & Umbreit (1993) stated is best when they
said, “In case after case it was the knowledge and professionalism of that key staff
member that made the difference between success and disaster.” By having the
professionalism and knowledge to follow through with an event and all of its
requirements and stated details, these events are more likely to have positive outcomes.
Analysis of Alternatives
While professionalism is the overall theme that needs to be addresses, it can be
broken down into 3 smaller points to make it easier to accomplish. These steps can be
taken together or separate. They can also be seen as alternatives ways toassist with the
building of relationships between the event planners and the hotels they work with. The
alternatives are increase training, communication and follow through. Tohelp
understand the alternatives and how they will affect event planners and/or hotels, a

5. 4
SWOT Analysis for each alternative has been carefully planned out and is provided
below each suggested alternative.
Alternative 1: By making sure that event planners and hotel employees are well
training in their department and in at least one other department, they will have a
better chance at working through event disasters and coming out on top.
Strengths
 Team members will be able to step in and provide assistance if another team
member cannot make it to work.
 They know how the company they work for functions.
 Employees can work together to complete tasks in faster times than they could
alone.
 Training and cross training are building experiences.
 Training helps move individuals up the corporate ladder.
 Proper training has the potential to help individuals finish their assignments in a
better way.
 Training helps individuals react to work related situations.
 With suitable training, individuals can feel comfortable taking on more
responsibilities.
 Companies can save money on searching and hiring employees by training and
moving individuals up the ranks.
 During and after the training process, companies can find out which employees
are their strongest players.

6. 5
 Training heightens the natural abilities of the employees.
Weaknesses
 The employees may be spread too thin over multiple positions.
 No one knows everything about one certain topic or line of business.
 A great deal of time is needed in order to train employees to perform tasks they
are not used to.
 Some personalities will assume that they know the best way toperform a task,
even if they were trained to do it another way.
 Some individuals cannot think past their training.
 After or during the training process, many individuals leave the company because
the training can be intense.
 Other companies will want to take employees because they have good training.
Opportunities
 The company could hire fewer employees.
 If an employee quits, there is another person that can step in and continue
preforming the job seamlessly.
 The employees are not forever stuck in one career path.
 With training employees to perform tasks a certain way, companies can increase
their employment pool.
 With a good training process, the company has the ability to bring in more
talented and experienced individuals.

7. 6
Threats
 These employees become prices for other companies since they are trained to
perform more than one task.
 Employees could get burnt out.
 Employees are more likely to quit and which increases employee turnover.
 Employees can set up short cuts to perform tasks and thus undermine the way
the trainer is teaching the team to perform them.
Events are the perfect time for something to go wrong. Hillin (2014) compiled a list
of wedding mishaps. When trouble does show its head, it is up to the event planners and
the hotel employees to attempt to make it better. By being cross trained, it takes fewer
people to make the magic happen, which in turns take fewer employees away from
normal hotel business and guests.
Alternative 2: If anyone involved in the event would take the time to make verbal
checks with each other, many of the mistakes and misunderstands could be resolved
before they have time to form.
Strengths
 Communication can resolve many issues early on.
 Communication helps build relationships between the event planners, hotel
employees, and especially the clients.

8. 7
 Communicating can make sure that everyone involved in the event understand
how the event should look, how long the event should last, how many individuals
are expected to come to the event, and even down to the color scheme of the
event.
 Communication keeps all individuals of the company on the same page.
 Some good communicators can also communicate very effectively through their
writing. This allows more than just a few individuals to receive the ideas and
understanding can be increased.
 Body language can help the communication process.
 Creates an open door policy among all involved in the planning of the event.
 The company can make sure that well developed notes are taken which would
allow another event planner to take over if the original one was unable to perform
for the event.
 Companies can create a cohesive business plan for all employees to follow.
 Those that can communicate properly have a better chance of getting their
message across to individuals not only in the company but the ones that they
work with.
Weaknesses
 Communicating can take a long time, which means event planners can lose
planning time do to all potential communications.
 Many individuals communicate on different levels, which can result in a message
not being understood.

9. 8
 When planners or hotels deal with more than one event at a time, there is a
potential for information to be confused and placed with a different event.
 Individuals in a company can easily pass the buck from one person to another in
an organization. In other words, they can easily shift the blame to someone else
through the use of an unclear conversation.
 When individuals feel comfortable talking with superiors, there is a potential to
become a tattle tale business structure.
 The individuals have to first fully understand the topic or all parts required in the
planning process to be able to effectively communicate what they are planning.
 Individuals of different languages or backgrounds may not communicate on the
same levels.
 “Noise” can completely shut down the communication process.
Opportunities
 By communicating efficiently, planners and hotel employees could move up in
their positions.
 They can gain more business. Business advertising will go up and they will more
efficiently be able to communicate what their business is all about.
 Companies can promote their better communicators from within, which saves the
time and money trying to hire from outside sources.
 Communication also opens doors to building relationships between companies.

10. 9
Threats
 Their competition will have an easier time challenging if they know all about your
company.
 Other companies will be able to copy your core competencies.
 Just like companies will want to promote their better communicators, other
companies will want to take these individuals for themselves and their teams.
 Not communicating through a secure server could allow a third party tosteal
valuable client information.
 Company privacy may become an issue.
Communication is a fantastic foundation to start any form of a relationship, and the
relationships between the event planners and the hotel (and their employees) is no
different. Communicating shows everyone that the other person understands what is
being asked of them. It also shows where potential “noise” could be coming from.
“Noise” is what interferes with the communication process (Nordquist, n.d.). It can be
anything from actual noise to different past experiences that cause people to look at
situations in different ways. By communicating, the “noise” can be worked out and even
prevented. Body language is a big helper for communication. It can potentially aid
individuals understand of what the other person means. They can visually see how
passionate or annoyed the person is about the topic they are discussing. Many
communication errors could be resolved very easily if body language was added to the
communication process at the beginning.

11. 10
Alternative 3: Working with companies that follow through with their promises, show
the public that they not only care but they are respectful to the individual events that
are being planned.
Strengths
 When companies follow through with what they said they would do, clients are
more likely to be happy with the overall event.
 When clients are happy, they will spread good comments about the companies
they worked with, thus giving both positive word-of-mouth.
 This builds trust with clients and business partners.
 If a company is known for following through with their promises, they have a
great choice of not only gaining more business, but it will also increase their
income.
 Being known as a company that follows through with their promises is a way to
build up a positive reputation with other businesses and future clients.
Weaknesses
 Many tasks have the potential to be accomplished by more than one event
planner. While this is not always necessarily bad, it is not good to show up to a
wedding with two wedding cakes.
 Clients start to believe that the company can do anything and thus will except it.

12. 11
 By having outrageous request, many clients will be upset when they find out it
cannot be done. They are more likely to tell their friends and other companies.
This leads to negative word-of-mouth.
Opportunities
 With a reputation as a company that follows through with their promises, they
may gain more clients from word-of-mouth alone.
 Brings in more business opportunities.
 By following through with all promised items, all companies involved can gain a
type of free advertising.
 The companies get the chance to build a better reputation with the community
and individuals from other communities.
 Follow through helps other companies and individuals know what the company
stands for.
Threats
 None
Follow through is one of the most important attributes that a company can give. By
completing tasks they promised, they will automatically look good to the public. There
will be a better chance that they will have either repeat business or will gain new clients
from the one event the event planner and the hotel puts on. For the hotel, the business

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does not necessarily come from and event. Their business can come from previous event
guests coming back with their families.
Recommendation
The main issue that is being addresses is professionalism, which is a combination
of many different points. This study looked at training, communication and follow
through. While it is a good idea to focus on just those aspects, it is an even better idea is
to look at companies that displays these aspects and try tobring their techniques into
the event planners and hotels relationships. Most companies do not have all the time in
the world, nor does it have all the money in the world in order to attempt all of the above
mentioned alternative ideas. In order to figure out which one adds the most value to the
specific company, the company will want to look at cost to implement, implementation
time requires, and outcomes. While outcomes cannot necessarily be evaluated before a
decision is made, the company can look at other companies that selected to go with the
point they are looking at. While results are not going to be the exact same for all
companies, it is a good starting point when examining different ideas.
After reading through the different points and looking at companies that are in
similar fields as event planners and hotels, the ultimate recommendation is follow
through. Both industries were able to look at the Walt Disney Company for examples of
how to perform follow through and what kind of results they should expect if it is
completed correctly. While this can been seen all over the Company, Disney’s Fairy Tale
Wedding and Honeymoon are the major players to examine. When looking to acquire

14. 13
information from clients at the beginning of the event process, Disney Cast Members all
go through a cycle of thinking before they start performing. This cycle starts with
“understand and prioritize”, then “adapt and apply”, followed by “reorient and upskill”,
and finally “operationalize and sustain” (Our Approach, n.d.). In other words, each Cast
Member that touches this event must know exactly what the client wants and which
needs to be done first, check in with the client on a regular basis to make sure they are
still happy with the event’s setup or if they want to change anything, they must be
flexible and work with the new potential changes, and finally they need to be able to
multitask through different events. For Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding and Honeymoon, it
is not about just about saying “yes” toevery demand the bride has but it is about
working closely with the couple and finding ways tobring the brides personal fairy tale
to life.
Now that an example company has been selected and analyzed, the company
needs to be able to convert an example into action. deKluyver and Pearce (2012)
presented the Strategy Formulation Process diagram (Figure 1) as a way to visually
share with superiors how the decision process flowed into the discussion to focus on
follow through. Each different box from Figure 1 is a separate part of the formulation
process and the bolded points included inside of the boxes help with the evaluation and
analysis of the questions located at the bottom of the diagram. This discussion needs to
focus more on the “Where should we go?” and “How do we get there?” parts from Figure
1. The first question from Figure 1 is not considered in this decision process because a
majority of it does not change based on the strategy that is being used. The section that
does change will be considered completely in the second question.

15. 14
For the first question, the SWOT Analysis for each alternative will be displayed to
show the highs and lows of each one. They will also be displayed to visually compare the
three alternatives. This will allow for easy decision making. It also helps the decisions
makers locate which areas may need more research or which ones can be kicked out at
this stage of the process. The second question looks more at the plan of action. It focuses
on the specific changes that need to be made either to the company itself or to certain
departments. This is where the company can see the breakdown of all the required steps
of implementing the chosen alternative (follow through).
As a manager, I would lay out all information about the different alternatives.
This includes the SWOT Analysis that is provided above, a comparison of all three
alternative SWOTs in a Venn diagram, and then a walk-through of how each one could
be accomplished including all steps required. The comparisons will be done in a Venn
diagram to allow for all the different comparisons to be seen together. Tomake the
diagram easier to read, each different letter from the SWOT Analysis will be completed
within its own separate Venn diagram (a total of four diagrams) and then a final
diagram will be done to show the relationships between the three alternatives (for a
grand total of five Venn diagrams). The walk through will include a step by step for each
alternative. This will allow those above to follow the full thought process required in
order to come to a decision. Steps include:
 Evaluating where each team member is currently based on each alternative
 Grouping similar leveled individuals in team
 Teams will go through necessary training together
 Each team will work together to create an event

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 Teams will be reevaluated after a certain amount of time.
Each group is judged on the single alternative solution they are working with. All “noise”
will be disregarded and will not affect overall outcomes.
Follow through has no negative side effects, just like it has no threats. This is
because by giving individuals what they want, they have nothing to complain about.
That is unless they find out too late that they really did not want what they originally
thought they wanted. There are no threats because no external force can threaten an
event planner or hotel from following through with the agreed upon items.
On the other hand, there are multiple positive side effects of following through.
These positive side effects can be seen in the strength section of the SWOT Analysis. Out
of all of those listed above, the one companies want the most is “Being known as a
company that follows through with their promises is a way to build up a positive
reputation with other businesses and future clients”.
Conclusion
This case study focused on the event planners and hotels. The purpose of this
paper was to explore the strengths while considering the weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats of alternative ways to enhance the relationship between the event planners and
hotels. This purpose statement guided the research and development of the three SWOT
Analyses (increase training, communication and follow through).

17. 16
After looking at three possible alternative recommendations to give event
planners and hotels to help better their relationship with each other and all three of the
SWOT Analyses, it was found that the simple act of follow through with all agreed upon
elements was the best option. When each company does what they promised they would
do, a better relationship could be formed between the two. This in turn will potentially
bring both companies more business and thus more money.

18. 17
Reference Page
deKluyver, C. A., & Pearce, J. (2012). Strategy: A View from the Top 4th Edition.Upper
Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Hillin, T. (2014). 10 Unexpected Things That Can (And Will) Go Wrong On Your
Wedding Day. Retrieved October 11, 2014, from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/31/wedding-
disasters_n_5064731.html
Nordquist, R. (n.d.). What Is the Communication Process and How Does It Work?
Retrieved October 11, 2014, from
http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/Communication-Process.htm
Our Approach. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2014, from
https://disneyinstitute.com/approach/
Rutherford, D.G. & Umbreit, W.T. (1993). Improving interactions between meeting
planners and hotel employees. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration
Quarterly, 34(1), 68-80.

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Appendix
Figure 1: The Strategy Formulation Process