Acting in a professional and ethical manner is critical for success in your career. Within the field, stories of unbecoming professional conduct or unethical practices by an event planner tend to spread via the grapevine (i.e., word of mouth), but often more rapidly by social media. Therefore, it is paramount that event planners protect their future by adhering to acceptable professional conduct and ethics. This in turn will bolster their careers as successful event planners.
You practiced with ethical practices in Part 2 and professional conduct guidelines in Part 3 of the learning activity. This assignment will give you an opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned as you apply professional standards and ethics to a client problem in the production of an event.
Scenario: Javier is the event coordinator at a prominent hotel in Naples, Florida. The cancellation policy has always stated that any cancellation of an event must be made a minimum 2 and a half months in advance of the event or the client will forfeit any monies paid to the hotel.
Since his hotel experiences hurricanes, they developed a cancellation policy to provide protection for the hotel. The hotel event contract stipulates that a deposit of 70% of the costs of the event space rental, room rental, and catering costs must be submitted upon the signing of a contract with the hotel. There is a hurricane clause in the cancellation policy that stipulates that in the event of a hurricane that does not actually hit Naples, the event will not be cancelled as long as winds remain below 60 miles per hour, and the full deposit and balance of the payment is still due the hotel. If the winds do reach or exceed 60 miles an hour, the deposit amount will be refundable, but a 5% cancellation fee will apply. If the client has paid the 30% balance, that balance is totally refundable.
The European Clockmakers convention put down their 70% deposit with the Naples hotel 8 months ago and paid their balance due 1 month ago. Now Thursday at 5:00 p.m. before their event (U.S. time), Hurricane Willy is bearing down on St. Petersburg (north of Naples) moving west at 55 miles per hour and will be out into the Gulf by Friday afternoon (Saturday at 1:00 a.m. London time). The Clockmakers call Javier on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Naples time (11:00 p.m. Thursday in London) and want to cancel their event. They are scheduled to leave by Saturday at 2:00 p.m. London time, which has them arriving at about 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning in Naples.
Checklist:
- Define the problem and the contributing factors.
- Based on the learning activity and the cancellation policy as stipulated above, explain what Javier’s response should be and why, using the professional and ethical practices provided.
- Show how you figured out the solution to the problem using basic math skills.
- Who is contractually justified here and why? Provide support for your response.
- Explain what result would constitute a win-win end result (i.e., where both parties win some) and why.
Disclaimer: The organization and characters depicted in this exercise are fictional. Any resemblance to real organizations or individuals is purely coincidental.
Submission Requirements: Provide a minimum 2- to 3-page APA-formatted paper in a Word document with an additional title page and submit the assignment to the Dropbox.
