Event and Conference Management: Corinthia London Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of event and conference management, focusing on the practices of upscale hotels like Corinthia London. It begins by categorizing events into corporate, private, and charity events, providing examples of each. The report then critiques the development of the event and conference sector, highlighting its importance within the hospitality and tourism industry. Current trends in the event sector, such as virtual sessions and standout events, are discussed. A detailed layout of a wedding event at Corinthia London is presented, including basic and additional services to meet client requirements. The report further explores management roles within the event industry, discussing managerial skills, personal attributes, and safety and security measures for specific events. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and insights into effective event management strategies.

MANAGING
CONFERENCE AND
EVENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................................3
P1 categories and dimensions of events...................................................................................................3
Critique for the development of event and conference sector..................................................................5
Current trends in events sector.................................................................................................................5
Layout of wedding event in Corinthia London........................................................................................7
Additional services to add value and meet specific client requirement for wedding event......................8
Management roles within event industry as per the job opportunities therein.........................................9
Managerial skills and personal attributes in event industry....................................................................11
Safety and security measures for specific events...................................................................................12
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................14
Books and journals................................................................................................................................14
Online....................................................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
In modern times, the tourism and hospitality industry is indicating appreciable growth.
Such appreciating growth comes with managing the affairs pertaining to such undertaking with
highly skilled and expertise individual. Good management with prior experience of how
customer’s need can be best understood and satisfied results in achieving high level of growth
and development. This is necessary as the industry is highly customer oriented (Yodsuwan,
Pathan, and Butcher, 2020). The present report will be based on how various conferences and
events are managed by upscale hotels in London, particularly Corinthia London, right from
planning, its implementation till the successful accomplishment of the events. Here in this report
various event categories along with examples of events; its planning and implementation and the
managerial skills required for making event successful by meeting needs and expectations of the
stakeholders will be discuss. The report will also present employment opportunities within event
sector along with suggestions for safety and security measures required for each specific events
and costs related to it for the hotel and guests.
MAIN BODY
P1 categories and dimensions of events
There are different categories for classifying events on the basis of their context and type. The
broader basis in which events are categorized are corporate, private and charity. The categories
of events that has been organized in Corinthia London are as follows:
Corporate events: the first and the most important category of event is corporate events. It is a
kind of social or cordial activity funded or conducted by business organization. The audience or
guest for this event is generally broader in size (Baker, 2018). Employees, business clients,
members of the board, customers, stakeholders and managers. Companies generally organizes
events for the reason such as,
 educating employees about new policies
 educating customers about new product or service
 rewarding and motivating employees
 celebrating festivals
 to manage and introduce change

 marking milestones
The list of events under the category of corporate events are as follows (Jones, and Moital,
2017):
 conferences
 business exhibitions
 trade shows
 award shows
 annual general meetings
 Incentive programs
 launching events
 experiential events
corporate events are modern or emerging concept in the event sector which is utilized by
businesses in building and strengthening relations with various stakeholders. Dimension of
corporate event is of generally broad size and restricted to business and its associated body or
individuals.
Private events: Private events are of quite personalized nature meant for gathering in order to
celebrate family milestones & life events. Such events are more or less related to social events
only. The purpose of events can be easily highlighted through the type of event conducted under
this category (Liang and Fortinet Inc, 2020). For example, birthday and marriage anniversary
itself make it clear the very purpose of the event.
The dimension of such events are generally in terms of its size and number of guests which is
generally restricted to family, relatives and friends. These events are not open for general public
as whoever forming part of guests are generally invited personally by the organizers of the such
events.
The events under this category are listed as follows:
 Wedding events
 birthday parties
 theme party
 marriage anniversaries

 & family events
Fundraising or charity: As the name suggest, which indicate that such events are basically
organized for the purpose of raising funds with the prior aim to carry out charity and establishing
non-profit organization (Yodsuwan, Pathan and Butcher, 2020). The dimension of such event is
restricted to only those audiences who are interested in being a financial supporter for a cause
backing the events. Some of the examples of such events are as follows:
 Tournaments
 Auctions
 Gala dinners
Critique for the development of event and conference sector
Events and conference sector is considered to be one of the most important sector within the
industry of hospitality and tourism (Thomas and Weiss, EntIT Software, 2019). This sector aids
both corporate and private body or individual in organizing and managing gathering from very
few to thousands of audiences. Being a manager in an upscale hotel of London, that is Corinthia
London, where it has been realized that how well events like corporate and private functions
expos, personal celebrations, meetings, special events all ranging from a very few to a large
number of audiences. Such gatherings need high level of expertise towards its management and
this has become possible due to the evolution of this events and conference sector only. One
challenge that is being faced by this sector is ensuring customization. This challenge can be
overcome by being flexible in organizing and managing events to be suited with individual need
through offering solutions appropriately.
Current trends in events sector
With the growth and development of all sectors, there are many trends currently influencing the
event sector along with hospitality and tourism industry (Ekici and Toksoz, 2021).
Virtual sessions: nowadays, with the advancement of technology, many events are taking place
online just with the use of mobile phones or laptops and internet (Todd, Leask and Ensor, 2017).
Such online events can be from any category of events, like in case of corporate events,
meetings, conferences and experiential events can take place online. Also, in case of fundraising
events, where auctions, charity and donations are taking place online.

Organization under event sector, like here Corinthia London may invest more on events tech and
need to prove and justify their value along with price tags to cater to these trends in the market.
Standout events: with the development of this sector wedding events has greatly changed from
traditional concept. As in the present time, people are hiring event manager and companies for
managing events in order to exceptionally standout from others. People need to make their event
memorable among their guests.
These kind of trends among young generations leads to evolution of many ideas within event
sector leads to many innovation during the past few years such as:
Unique design for venue: Event planner are nowadays become more and more innovative
towards designing venue which ensure perfect ambiance that match with the type of event being
organized (Gaines, 2021).
Event Lightening: lightening plays an important role in creating ambiance to make the event
successful. For example, colorful psychedelic and sombre lights. The lightening used must match
with the mood of the concerned audience.
Technological innovations within event sector: Technology has made this sector dynamic and
revolutionary. Technology has provided innovative solutions to industry to grow and develop to
meet the changing needs of the customers (Filo and et.al., 2018). Like in modern times, due to
technological support, many innovations like drones, live streaming and VR has taken place
within this sector.

Layout of wedding event in Corinthia London
Here, the wedding event has been chosen and how it should be well and uniquely designed to
meet specific requirements of client who wants to organize its wedding event in Corinthia
London, so that their self esteem needs can be best satisfied through the successful organization
and management of their wedding function. The layout designed above is for meeting the 100
guest requirement.
Basic services available to meet clients basic requirements
Bridal table: The special and unique sitting arrangement for bride and groom. So that they can
be recognizable for general public. The decoration matters a lot where special floors and
decorative techniques are adopted for the couple.
Dance floor: The space provide for dance performance of family members, wedding couple and
their friends and relatives.
Guests sitting arrangements: the round table are appropriately placed within the large space for
ensuring proper and organized sitting arrangement for guests.

Gift table: The tabular facility for placing gifts given by guests to the wedding couple.
Managing guest entry at check in point: this point where proper and organized entry can be
ensured to avoid any crowd and mismanagement.
Food counter: This space is particularly meant for serving foods to guests to ensure orderly
management.
Photo booth: This facility is particularly meant for providing photo shoot, where family, friends
and relatives take take their photo with the wedding couple.
Additional services to add value and meet specific client requirement for wedding event
Some of the additional facilities that has been emerged with the growth of event sector to cope
up with the broader and special needs of the clients, and these facilities are explained below with
reference to Corinthia London in the provision of such additional services to their client in case
of wedding events.
Welcome drinks: nowadays with the new and emerging trends, most of the events like wedding,
where drinks are served to the guests. These drinks are generally served to guests when they
make entry to the events. There are special arrangements made for serving these welcome drinks.
Live streaming booth: This particular facility and arrangements are made by the event planners
and provided to their clients who have their relatives in some other places or country and are not
able to attend wedding of their close and loved ones (Myung and Smith, 2018). So through this
facility, they can view the events like wedding from far away distances. This is known as live
event watching.
Drone facility: General audio and video recording are not able to record the each and
everything. Nowadays, in order to take shoot of whole wedding ceremony, such drone camera
facilities are provided to clients which is not the same as general camera.
Special entry point for bride and groom: The special point or space has been provided to make
the entry of bride and groom special and memorable. Client’s needs are increasing with
innovations and the event sectors innovations are taking place accordingly.

DJ: This facility of playing songs and sounds to entertain guests and facilitate dance
performance are becoming popular in modern times (Jin, Lee and Daniels, 2017). These facilities
are meant for creating joy and entertainment within the events and make the audience quite
engaged by avoiding boredom.
Lake view: The Corinthia London is generally demanded from many high profile and wealthy
clients due to the facility or additional services in terms of providing good views for clicking
picture. For wedding events too, such lake views through veranda is meaningful for the guests.
Bar facility: These counter is more specifically meant for serving both alcoholic and non-
alcoholic drinks to the guests, depending upon the kind of event organized. But these days such
counters are common trend among wedding events and the same is provided by Corinthia
London.
Cake table: This is also common trend in events like wedding and birthday parties, so the event
planner must accordingly provide the special arrangements for cakes. In wedding event, the cake
table are specially designed and decorated as it has become part of the ceremonial activities.
Waiters and waitresses: There is special entry point assigned for waiter and waitress to serve
the enter and exit the wedding hall in order to provide services to the guest on their table. These
services are considered to be additional one where drinks and foods are served by waiters and
waitresses on the table of the guests to manage the events effectively and appropriately (Filo,
Fechner, and Inoue, 2020).
In this way, Corinthia, a well-established hotel in London, UK has designed best layout for their
client’s requirements in order to meet up their expectations of making their event memorable.
Management roles within event industry as per the job opportunities therein
There are many emerging managerial roles within event industry that are evolved with the
innovations due to increasing needs and expectations of the client in making their event
successful and memorable. With the emergence and advancement of innovations and technology
many job opportunities are created within the event and conference sector. Some of these
managerial roles creating job opportunities in this sector are as follows (Backman, 2018):

Event designer: These roles are emerging and creating employment opportunities for those with
best knowledge of psychology, logical thinking and analytical ability. These roles are meant for
creating best audience experience whereby focusing on individual experience the overall
objectives of the event are ensured to be achieved.
videography in events: There are increasing demand for high quality videography for every
events. This demand has created job opportunity in event sector for an individual with high level
of passion and creativity in videography. In order to display each and every part of the event,
videography is the best technique to capture every single aspect of the event (New and
Emerging Roles in the Event Industry. 2018).
Architecture in event management: Like the designer in events, there are requirements of
architecture for an event, where the whole planning and its execution are done by the manager
with a constructive knowledge. The entire event structure is developed right from planning till
execution in terms of successful accomplishment of event objectives.
Managerial role of data analytic: Data analytic is giving much career opportunities in every
sector and the event sector is not an exception of it. Many information collected and analyzed are
meant for enhancing productivity and generating higher revenues. This role is basically
demanded within event sector to get the idea for giving better experience, and for this, event
management companies are hiring many candidates.
Managing customer experience: Every event has a common objective of making their audience
and guests happy by giving entertaining experience in order to repeat their demand for future
events. These roles are demanded to carry out special services like handling customer’s mails
and feedback along with taking complaints from customers to improvise their experience.
Event reporter: This role is highly demanded when the count of online audience is large due to
the geographical distances or any other reason. The person appointed for this role is responsible
for reporting the event live for such online audiences.
Creative director: Individual hired for this role are of highly creative. They are demanded for
making an event creatively outstanding due to their creative skills and direction. With their
creation, they pour life to the events.

Feedback manager: Almost all event management companies hire those individuals, who are
responsible for taking and understanding the information that has been received from customers
in terms of feedback. This role allows for making timely changes by the event manager to
improve customer experience.
Managerial skills and personal attributes in event industry
Every individual industry requires some unique traits in the conduct of their employees to meet
their industrial specific client’s need and expectations. Here, in this section the skills and
personality traits or attributes required by the managers are being considered in event industry in
order to excel and become successful (Kim, and Kaewnuch, 2018):
People skills: an event manager must have the skills of connecting with people and managing the
same by satisfying each individual need. They are generally surrounded by customers, vendors,
event attendees, executives and staff. They must be comfortable in working with people and
resolving their conflicts.
Flexibility: it has been believed that the event manager must be flexible with the changing need
of the situations. They must adapt to each and every circumstances efficiently, quickly and
quietly.
Good listeners: the good understanding level to get the idea about the stakeholder’s need can be
ensured through proper listening to their specifications. During event manager and client
conversations, if they have paid appropriate attention in listening to what they have said and not
said helps them in staying one step ahead (Greenwell, Danzey-Bussell and Shonk, 2019).
Organized individual: event manager must be well organized in order to handle multiple tasks at
one time. They should have skills to develop step wise checklist and technical tools to ensure
self-organization.
Event manager must be Passionate: despite of job stresses, their love towards their conduct
should never be affected. They must behave in a cool and calm manner towards their genuine
passion even at the time when everything seems to be lost.

In this way, there are many skills and personal attributes that plays an important role in making
the career of event manager successful. These skills and attributes are obviously helpful in
meeting their stakeholder’s needs and expectations in a great way.
Safety and security measures for specific events
Safety and security in an important aspect of every event planning. This must be appropriately
provided and ensured by the event security manager. It takes place by providing safe and secure
venues for the event along with the safety and security of guests and staff members. There are
many ways in which these measures are adopted to ensure safety and security before, during and
after the event (Event safety and security planning. 2020).
 Security checkpoints creation: The best way to keep away threats and ensure protection
to all associated parties to the event. Such checkpoints undertake strict security check
from which all guests and staff need to passed through it to get inside the event venue.
Such measure is proved to be useful for events such as corporate events, meetings and
conferences on critical issues.
 Hiring security staff: It has been always advisable to appoint security guards specially
to cope up with the threats of damages and any inconvenience during the events.
For example: When in the event there are high profile individual are coming then
additional security staff particularly volunteering them must be appointed.
 Inspection prior to event: in order to ensure the safety of the event venue, there should
be inspection of the entire venue before the event begins. This helps in avoiding
destructive elements in terms of equipment and people who can cause the disruption in
the event.
 CCTV camera’s installation: events such as wedding and auctions need greater level of
measures pertaining to safety and security. Where in case of auction, the subject matter,
that is the assets must be kept with great care and its safety needs to be ensured
accordingly. Also, in case of wedding, there are valuable assets that need special security
which can be easily ensure through installing CCTV cameras which capture the entire
event and gives closer view of everything that take place during the event.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that with the growth and development of the
events and conference sector, there are many new opportunities has been created. Like there are
increasing demand for employment due to new innovations to cater to the changing needs and
expectations of the stakeholders. Also, a lot of areas which needs an action like threatening acts
of people during the events requires an additional service from event management companies to
ensure enough safety and security both on venues and for guests and staff. At last, events and
conference sector has provided the society to make their career and also utilize their offerings to
improvise their experience.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Yodsuwan, C., Pathan, A. and Butcher, K., 2020. Exploring the drivers of organizational
citizenship behaviors (OCB) among corporate meeting attendees. International Journal
of Event and Festival Management.
Baker, C. L., 2018. A Critical Investigation into The Key Factors and Characteristics of an
Effective Corporate Events Team (Doctoral dissertation, Cardiff Metropolitan
University).
Jones, K. and Moital, M., 2017. Techniques employed to create event prestige value for
corporate VIPs: the VIP Framework. European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and
Recreation, 8(2), pp.117-129.
Liang, D., Fortinet Inc, 2020. Security information and event management. U.S. Patent
10,616,258.
Thomas, J. D. and Weiss, J. L., EntIT Software LLC, 2019. Automated event management. U.S.
Patent 10,404,551.
Todd, L., Leask, A. and Ensor, J., 2017. Understanding primary stakeholders' multiple roles in
hallmark event tourism management. Tourism management, 59, pp.494-509.
Filo, K., and et.al., 2018. ‘You belonged to something’: Exploring how fundraising teams add to
the social leverage of events. European Sport Management Quarterly, 18(2), pp.216-236.
Weinryb, N. and Turunen, J., 2017. Fundraising as a theatrical event. International Journal of
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 22(4), p.e1594.
Gaines, M., 2021. Online Fundraising During a Pandemic. In Enhancing Higher Education
Accessibility Through Open Education and Prior Learning (pp. 205-209). IGI Global.
Filo, K., Fechner, D. and Inoue, Y., 2020. Charity sport event participants and fundraising: An
examination of constraints and negotiation strategies. Sport Management Review, 23(3),
pp.387-400.

Jin, N. P., Lee, S. S. and Daniels, M. J., 2017. Wedding Professionals' Use of Social
Media. Event Management, 21(4), pp.515-521.
Myung, E. and Smith, K., 2018. Understanding Wedding Preferences of the Millennial
Generation. Event Management, 22(5), pp.693-702.
Kim, Y. H. and Kaewnuch, K., 2018. Finding the gaps in event management research: A
descriptive meta-analysis. Event Management, 22(3), pp.453-467.
Backman, K. F., 2018. Event management research: The focus today and in the future. Tourism
management perspectives, 25, pp.169-171.
Ekici, R. and Toksoz, D., 2021. New Trends in Event Marketing. In Impact of ICTs on Event
Management and Marketing (pp. 156-176). IGI Global.
Greenwell, T. C., Danzey-Bussell, L. A. and Shonk, D. J., 2019. Managing sport events. Human
Kinetics.
Online
New and Emerging Roles in the Event Industry. 2018. [online] Available through: <
https://www.eventmanagerblog.com/emerging-roles-in-the-event-industry>
Event safety and security planning. 2020. [online] Available through: <
https://www.mpi.org/essential-guide/security-planning>