Business Case Study: Analyzing Hilton Hotel's Food Poisoning Crisis

This case study examines a food poisoning incident at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane, Australia, following a wedding reception in 2016. The outbreak, characterized by diarrhea and vomiting, was linked to norovirus, although the source remained unidentified. Despite no evidence of food contamination from the hotel's kitchen, the incident damaged the hotel's reputation and placed significant pressure on management. The analysis suggests three action-based solutions: leveraging the health department's findings to reassure guests, highlighting the potential for person-to-person virus spread, and implementing pre-event testing to demonstrate proactive health measures. The case concludes that the outbreak was an accident, and the kitchen was not accountable, with three strategies recommended to mitigate the crisis in the future. The provided solution includes references to relevant literature. This case study is a valuable resource for students seeking to understand crisis management and food safety in the hospitality industry.

Running head: HILTON HOTEL
Hilton hotel
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note

1HILTON HOTEL
Introduction
The real world business case was related to the hospitality sector of Hilton hotel in
Australia. In 2016, there was an alleged outburst of food poisoning after a wedding reception of
Hilton hotel in Brisbane (Abdelrasoul and Kouzmal 2017).
Description
The accident was carefully looked after in order to analyze the ingredients of the food. It
was found out after testing that due to a severe contagious virus, there was an outbreak of
diarrhea and vomiting among all those people who had attended the wedding reception. After
further analysis, it was found out that, the presence of norovirus was responsible for causing the
epidemic but the source of the virus was not known (Behera et al. 2015).
It can be stated food and beverage served at the five-star hotel might not be responsible
for spreading the virus. This is because there was no clear evidence found from the health
department that the virus has spread from food contamination. This hotel authority was put under
pressure because of this incident and the manager was made answerable. Although there was no
complaint against the kitchen of Hilton but the guests had started pointing towards the
management of this luxurious hotel. This incident was to blame for bringing down the reputation
of the hotel and the management was under tremendous stress (Gallart-Ayala et al. 2015).
To combat this problem, three action- based solutions can be suggested for Hilton hotel.
As the health department of Australia did not find any problem in the kitchen of the hotel,
therefore the management can use it as a positive point on their part. They can influence the
guests by pointing out that the source of the virus was not the Hilton kitchen. Therefore, they

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need not be afraid of consuming food and beverage from the hotel as the food department was
satisfied with the condition of the kitchen. Moreover, there was no complaint from any other
events held in the same hotel (Pelletier 2016).
The hotel management can be recommended to use the factor of person- to- person
spreading of the virus as a positive point on their part. It was confirmed by the health department
after sample testing that it might not be the case of food poisoning at the Hilton hotel. Rather, the
contagious virus can be spread from the contacts between people (Yu et al. 2017).
Again, as an action- based solution Hilton hotel can be recommended for future that they
should conduct a test prior to any occasion. It will give them an opportunity to give justification
to the people that they have taken proper measure for the betterment of people’s health. It will
not lead to the destruction of their image and reputation (Zhou 2017).
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the case of Hilton hotel that the outbreak was an accident and
the source of the virus was not known. However, the kitchen of Hilton was not accountable for
spreading the virus. It was doubted that the virus had spread from person to person. Three
strategies were recommended to avoid similar crisis in future.

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References
Abdelrasoul, S.E. and Kouzmal, H.A., 2017. Assessment of Storage Conditions of Food Items
and their Relation with Food Safety in Sharm El Sheikh Resorts. International Journal of
Heritage, Tourism, and Hospitality, 10(2/2).
Behera, C., Krishna, K., Bhardwaj, D.N., Rautji, R. and Kumar, A., 2015. A case of accidental
fatal aluminum phosphide poisoning involving humans and dogs. Journal of forensic
sciences, 60(3), pp.818-821.
Gallart-Ayala, H., Chéreau, S., Dervilly-Pinel, G. and Bizec, B.L., 2015. Potential of mass
spectrometry metabolomics for chemical food safety. Bioanalysis, 7(1), pp.133-146.
Pelletier, M.C., 2016. Assessing the energy requirement of local food systems: insights from
Australia.
Yu, H., Gibson, K.E., Wright, K.G., Neal, J.A. and Sirsat, S.A., 2017. Food safety and food
quality perceptions of farmers’ market consumers in the United States. Food Control, 79,
pp.266-271.
Zhou, G., 2017. Food Safety Crises in China. In The Regulatory Regime of Food Safety in
China (pp. 111-139). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.