Crisis Management for Hospitality Enterprises: The Case Study of Le Petit Gourmet
Added on 2020-11-02
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25011414Trung Chanh TranTOU9171MMCs International Hospitality Management with Professional PracticeTOU9171M – Crisis Management for Hospitality EnterprisesReport of Crisis Management: The Case Study of Le Petit GourmetStudent: Trung Chanh TranMartin KnightNatascha McVeighWord Count – 2199
25011414Trung Chanh TranTOU9171MContents1.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..............................................................................................32.TERMS OF REFERENCE..............................................................................................42.1Scope and extent of report...........................................................................................42.2Sector...........................................................................................................................42.3Working definitions.....................................................................................................42.4Phase of crisis..............................................................................................................42.5Turning point...............................................................................................................42.6Stakeholders................................................................................................................42.7Limitations...................................................................................................................43.INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................63.1Organisation Background............................................................................................63.2Organisation’s Crisis...................................................................................................64.PHASE OF CRISIS..........................................................................................................64.1Identification of Turning Point....................................................................................74.2Pivotal Crisis and phase of crisis.................................................................................75.STAKEHOLDERS AFFECTED BY CRISIS...............................................................75.1Impact on business owner:..........................................................................................75.2Impact on the staffs:....................................................................................................85.3Impact on the clients:...................................................................................................86.CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS.......................................................................................86.1Internal Communications............................................................................................86.2External Communications...........................................................................................86.3Spokeperson................................................................................................................96.4Timeline.......................................................................................................................97.PERCEIVED THREATS AND RESOLUTION.........................................................108.EVALUTION..................................................................................................................109.CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION............................................................................1110.REFERENCES................................................................................................................1211.APPENDIX......................................................................................................................13Page 2
25011414Trung Chanh TranTOU9171M1.EXECUTIVE SUMMARYAs the amount of crises affecting the national economy in general and the hospitalitysector particularly, it is becoming necessary to understand the nature of these crises and howto limit the impacts of such incidents. This report examines hospitality crisis managementpractices within the context of the Le Petit Gourmet – a family catering located in centralDenver, Colorado, USA. The paper also focused on examining the occurrence of foodpoisoning incident which has been traced to the organisation. The report is conducted withsome crisis communications frameworks that evaluate the importance and imperiousness ofcrisis management in the hospitality industry. The findings illustrate which practiceshospitality managers should consider as crucial and which practices they actually use duringthe crisis. The report also concludes with some recommendations for future research andmanagement of crises. All of the analysis and evaluations are made using facts andinformation gathered from academic journals, online resources and literature references.Page 3
25011414Trung Chanh TranTOU9171M2.TERMS OF REFERENCEThis Terms of Reference will guide the development of Le Petit Gourmet Catering: A CrisisManagement Report. This report forms part of the comprehensive strategic assessment of LePetit Gourmet Catering in Denver, Colorado, USA. Key issues raised in this report related to:2.1Scope and extent of reportThis report is aimed to evaluate crisis communication process of Le Petit GourmetCatering in Denver, USA. The report will concentrate in analysing the response strategy ofbusiness owner during their food poisoning incident. The time period is 1-year length whichis from December 1992 to December 1993.2.2SectorThis report will discuss the crisis management strategy of a local hospitalityorganisation, with its influence in a national dimension as the incident had affected a widerange of internal and external stakeholders.2.3Working definitionsPauchant and Mitroff (1992) defined crisis as a “disruption that physically affects asystem as a whole and threatens its basis assumptions, its subjective sense of self, itsexistential core”. This statement could be adopted as a working definition of crisis for thecase of Le Petit Gourmet Catering since the incident has severely affected the organisation’sreputation and outcomes, also its target audiences and the core stakeholders.2.4Phase of crisisThe report will analyse and evaluate the reactive and recovery phase of the crisis, orchronic crisis stage and crisis resolution stage.2.5Turning pointThe turning point here refers to the point of time when the crisis marked an escalationin intensity. The turning point of Le Petit Gourmet Catering was right after the foodpoisoning incident which had been traced to the organisation in December, 1992.2.6StakeholdersThere are three predominant stakeholders that had been directly impacted by thecrisis: the business owner, the staffs and the customers.2.7LimitationsIt is undeniable that this study has limitations, mostly due to the limited access andability to examine the reliability of statistics released by the company in 1992. Moreover,most of the information and statistics displayed in this report was gathered through onlinePage 4
25011414Trung Chanh TranTOU9171Mresearch from academic journal and virtual newspaper which may contain subjective opinionof the journalists or information bias.Page 5
25011414Trung Chanh TranTOU9171M3.INTRODUCTIONThe spectrum of recent crises impacting on the tourism and hospitality industry islarge, ranging from terrorism attacks in Madrid in 2004 and the “September 11 attack”,natural epidemics such as the Boxing Day Tsunami affecting large parts of coastal South EastAsia in 2004 [ CITATION Sha05 \l 1033 ], bush fires in Australia’s capital Canberra in2002 as well as the Asian pandemic crisis in 1997 to health-related threats such as the SARSoutbreak and bird flu epidemic in 2003, also the food and mouth outbreak in England in 2001[ CITATION Les06 \l 1033 ]. These issues resulted in an increase of studies assessingabout crisis management, especially within the context of hospitality industry. The purpose ofthis report is to evaluate which approaches had been adopted when dealing with a crisisthrough a case study of Le Petit Gourmet in Denver, USA.3.1Organisation BackgroundLe Petit Gourmet was founded in 1960 as a family catering business. The companywas located in a 15,000 square foot facility in Glendale, Colorado, in the Denver metro area.Le Petit had a number of employees ranging from 150 and 220 people, but only one-third ofthem were full-time staffs. The founder O'Connor also operated the Sweet Soiree bakeryshop, which is a subsidiary venture in the same building as he wanted to expand his businessand helped the customers having more options. Although having achieved many success inhis ambition with Le Petit Gourmet and being recognised as the most biggest caterer inDenver, O'Connor, however, had the desire to make his business become prominent on everysectors, from desserts to main dishes, and said that Le Petit had to cope with the fact thatcoming forward to appeal a larger segmentation on the market is the only way to survive.3.2Organisation’s CrisisOn December 30, 1992, while on a vacation in California, Jim O’Connor, presidentand owner of Le Petit Gourmet, a high-society catering firm in Glendale, Colorado received aphone call notifying him that a food poisoning incident of potentially epidemic proportion(hepatitis-A) had been traced to his organization. The health department was shutting hisbusiness down indefinitely. At first, O’Connor’s feelings was shock and defensive, however,he managed to overcome his personal concern and tried the best to find a solution.4.PHASE OF CRISISSimilar to most human events, crises can be described in terms of stages, or relativelyidentifiable sequences of events and reactions. Stages enable planners to monitor risks,progress, target stakeholders and take strategic action appropriate to the stage.Page 6
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