Brilliant - OBF

HOSP2011 Hospitality Sales and Meeting Management: Term Project Your assignment is to plan a multi-day meeting for a fictional company called Green Organics. You are the Sales person and the Convention Service Manager at the hotel or resort of your choice.

Background Information This meeting will be attended by 60 Green Organics corporate executives and sales representatives. They will also each bring a spouse or companion (but no children), so expect 120 attendees (60 couples). They will be coming from all over the United States and Canada. About 10% of them are driving distance from your hotel, and the rest will be flying in. Elizabeth Cooper founded Green Organics in 2010. She had been working for a large, successful food distributor, and many of her clients were requesting organic ingredients. This gave her an idea to start her own company. She now has a multimillion-dollar business, finding, selling, and delivering products to retail stores and restaurants. Later this year, she will drastically expand her customer base by offering organic home meal kits to consumers. Green Organics has enjoyed great success this past year. Ms. Cooper wants to gather this group for a celebration of the company’s successful year and its 10th anniversary, and to introduce the new meal kit subscription product, Green Kitchen. The corporate office of Green Organics is located at 210 Broadway, Chicago, IL 60606. Attendees will come from headquarters and from all over the United States. Your client (meeting planner) is Mark Jenkins, the Corporate Human Resources Director for Green Organics. Steve Montano, the Vice President of Sales, asked Mark to plan this event because Mark oversees employee morale. While Mark has agreed do this task, he is extremely busy in his regular job duties, and he does not have much experience planning meetings. He will need a lot of guidance from you planning this event. Mark’s phone number is 312-555-1234, and his email address is [email protected]. Mark has explained that they are very concerned about privacy for this meeting. The meal kit industry has become highly competitive, and this company does not want people from Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and other competitors to find out about their new venture. Also, he is requesting that organic ingredients be used in the menu items at their catered events, whenever possible. Green Organics is willing to pay extra for this. Mark has also made it clear to you that this is a celebration, and Ms. Cooper wants the attendees to really enjoy themselves. Green Organics is paying for all of the group’s events at the hotel/resort. The company is also paying for the guest rooms and tax, Wi-Fi in the rooms (if there is a fee), and parking (if there is a fee). Guests are on their own for all other incidentals.

Get started: Choose a hotel or resort to hold this meeting. It can be anywhere in the United States of America, but do consider the climate of your destination during the time of the event. Make sure the facility has enough sleeping rooms and function space to hold a meeting of this size. All information about function space, banquet menus (also known as “catering menus” or “event menus”), and banquet menu prices must be available on the facility’s website. You will submit your site selection in advance for approval. (See page 3 for instructions.)

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Outline of Planned Events A Banquet Event Order is required for each function that says “(BEO)” next to it.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020 Mark Jenkins and his wife arrive. They will need a sleeping room starting Tuesday night, checking out Saturday morning. 2:00pm – 3:30pm. Pre-convention meeting, to be attended by Mark, yourself, and 15 managers from the hotel. (This would normally require a BEO, but you do not have to write one.) Also expect a delivery of 5 boxes from Green Organics. The boxes will contain mock-up meal kits – only for display and not containing real food. The boxes need to be stored securely until the Thursday morning meeting.

Wednesday, March 25, 2020: Official meeting start and major arrival day Late morning through afternoon: Attendees will arrive and check in. Mark has asked for pre-registration for the rooms. (If your hotel has mobile check-in and keyless rooms which guests can unlock with their phones, they can go straight to their rooms.) 5:00pm – 7:00pm. Opening Cocktail Reception for all attendees. Provide a full host bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres. Elizabeth Cooper will give a 5-minute welcome speech at about 5:30. Photos of Green Organics staff at work over the years will be shown on a continuous loop in one corner of the room after the speech; this will require a projector, laptop, and screen. (BEO) Everyone is on their own for dinner after the cocktail reception.

Thursday, March 26, 2020 9:00am – 11:00am. Meeting for the 60 Green Organics employees only. The Research and Development Team will show a PowerPoint presentation, and Steve Montano will give a motivational speech to get the sales people excited. Have a continental breakfast set up in the rear or the foyer of the meeting room. Hotel staff will need to deliver the boxes to the room before the start of the meeting. (BEO) Spouses/companions are on their own for breakfast. 11:00am until dinner: Free time. 7:00pm – 11:00pm: Dinner-Dance for all attendees and spouses. Mark wants this to be an elegant, plated, sit-down dinner with fine food, dancing, and music. On your BEO (in “room set-up” and “special instructions”), describe the decorations and the entertainment. You will need a band or a DJ. Provide a host bar and bottles of wine with dinner (served at the tables). (BEO)

Friday, March 27, 2020: Official meeting end and major departure day No planned group events on Friday. Most guests will check out Friday morning, but they have been invited to stay until Sunday at the group rate, paid for by the Green Organics company. Expect about 10 couples to stay over until Sunday morning.

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Project Contents and Instructions Please follow all directions carefully, and proofread your work. Points will be deducted for spelling errors, grammatical errors, or not submitting the project in the assigned format. Due dates are on the syllabus and in ULearn.

Site Selection Submit the name of your site selection (city and hotel or resort). Also include a link to the facility’s website, and navigation instructions to find the banquet menus and meeting room information.

Part 1, Site Description (3-4 pages)

1A. Site description overview (about 1 page, double spaced) Identify and describe the destination city and its main attractions, and explain why it is a good choice for the Green Organics group. Include some ideas of what the attendees can do during their free time. Briefly describe the hotel and explain why this hotel is a good choice for the Green Organics group. Use your own words and avoid advertising language – this is an informational paper for class, not an advertisement to customers. (You will have an opportunity to sell later.) Please remember to use in-text citations. 1B. Site details (2 – 3 pages) Answer all of the questions listed below. Provide as many details as possible. Use each “question” (or part of it) as your heading. Bullet points/lists are acceptable.

• Climate/temperature (only for the time when the Green Organics group will be there)

• Transportation: What is the nearest airport? Is there a train station nearby? How will attendees get to the hotel from the airport and station? If there is an airport shuttle, is it free? How will attendees get around during their free time?

• Number of rooms in the hotel

• Special room amenities: unusual or luxury features/amenities (if any) offered in the hotel rooms. If the rooms do not contain anything unusual or special, write “none”. (Please do not list all of the room features and amenities.)

• Food and Beverage Outlets: List the restaurants and bars in the hotel; give a short description of each restaurant (1-2 sentences for each, in your own words). If there are more than four food and beverage outlets, list them all but only describe four.

• Meeting space: Total square footage of all meeting space. (For example, “This hotel contains 72,000 square feet of meeting rooms, ballrooms, and exhibit space.”)

• Function Room Selections: List each function for the group and give your preliminary choice for the room you will use for each. (For example: “Cocktail Reception: Grand Ballroom Sections F, G, and H.) Do not choose restaurants.

• Other: any other special features of the hotel, meeting site, city, or region that you think should be mentioned.

1C. Works cited page, using MLA format

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Part 2, Group Resume and BEO’s

2A. Group Resume. Use the format of the guidelines and examples. A blank template is available on the course ULearn site. Think carefully about all details. 2B. Banquet Event Orders (BEO’s). Write a BEO for each planned function that says “BEO” next to it. (There will be three.) See BEO instructions and examples. A template is available in ULearn.

Part 3, OBF Chart, Proposal Letter, Estimated Cost, Reflection

3A. The Estimated Cost for the entire event. This is an estimated cost of everything that will be on the group’s hotel master account, based on the expected number of guests. (See Page 1 for information about which types of charges the company is paying for.) A guide and example are in ULearn. 3B. OBF Chart Create an OBF chart for the Green Organics group, using at least two customer objectives from “Background Information” (page 1 of this document) and features from your hotel/resort. 3C. Proposal Letter. Write a proposal letter to Mark Jenkins. Use at least two “OBF” paragraphs in the letter, based on the OBF’s in your chart. Use business letter format for the letter. Although this section is at the end of your project, it would have been written long before the BEO’s and the resume, because it is a proposal. Date the letter January 2, 2020. 3D. Reflection. What did you learn from this project? How would you handle it if you had to do it all over again? What did you like least about it? Were there any parts that you particularly enjoyed? Be honest, but write professionally.