EMT201

Business Event
Tutor Mark Assignment (TMA02)

Name: Wong Yong Haw

PI No.: N2110602
Submission Date: 27/04/2022
1a) Corporate hospitality events often gather hosts and guests together for several hours in an informal
and relaxed atmosphere, creating many opportunities for direct contact or "meeting" with each other.
Corporate hospitality was originally created to hold events for the benefit of company employees and
potential customers at the expense of the organization. These gatherings would provide prospects for

potential business leads as well as strengthen existing company partnerships.

Corporate hospitality events are a good investment that can helps to boost companies’ brands value and
focusing on the company’s business goals. One of the most effective ways to accomplish is to develop a
corporate hospitality strategy. Such strategies imposed is to build networks and strong interpersonal
relationships in a relaxed, semi-informal environment. Relatively, there are several reasons of why
hosting corporate hospitality events is a good investment and it allows companies to achieve their
business goals. Firstly, it helps to strengthen relationships with their existing clients. Creating the ideal
corporate opportunities to meet the business goals aids in the establishment of the passive messages the
employees is attempting to communicate, as well as create valuable networking time. It gives employees
a platform to demonstrate company’s inventive, creation or ambitious nature. They can show attention to
details, excellent management abilities and accessibility, which will be enhanced by a pleasant
environment and a memorable experience. Secondly, meeting new clients is one of the good opportunities
for the employees to introduce their companies brand valuation and business goals. Especially it involves
with overseas clients, it is the most essential moment for the employees to use their full potential to
advertise and capture their interest as these are the chances that they can present and showcase their
products. Just like in FHA-Food and Beverages event, the platforms provided allows international
suppliers showcase their foods/products to their target customers including cooking demonstration and
also reaches face-to-face audiences and virtual representatives through digital platforms and streaming
services. As the competitive environment became more and more intense, clients had more choices about
who and how they want to do business with. Additionally, inviting potential clients to a corporate
hospitality event provides the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how efficient and productive the
employees working relationship will be. Lastly, developing mutual trust and loyalty among customer as it
is important to nurture and maintain the relationship well with the customers. Maintaining a relationship
may be as difficult as establishing a new one but it worth the effort of accomplishing it. Customer loyalty
boosts earnings, enhances sales performance, enables long-term growth and increasing revenue from
repeat purchases. As according to the book Marketing Metrics, companies are 60% to 70% likely to sell
to existing customers, while only 5% to 20% are likely to sell to new prospects. Consistency in
maintaining customers relationship is one of the key factors that could continuously pro-long and improve
the business revenue or prospect in business strategy.
1b)

Objectives

Informa Markets is an international platform company that helps to connect buyers and sellers and
facilitates the flow of commerce and trade in over a dozen specialized marketplaces. FHA Food &
Beverage will be one of the upcoming mega events hosted by Informa Markets which will be focusing on
increasing trade prospects for the sector through developing business partnerships, facilitating learning,
and strengthening business relationship.

FHA Food & Beverages is one of the mega events that it offers the world's top and trendiest and most
diverse food and drink products and an exemplary experience highlighted by innovation. Over 70% of the
exhibitors are direct manufacturers and up to 15% are expected to use this platform as a launch pad for
new innovations to enter the market. The showcase of the food & beverages ranges from drinks, fruits,
vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy foods. Speciality & Fine Food Asia (SFFA) is one of the
similar corporate hospitality events that brings together decision makers and buyers from the foodservice,
hospitality, retail, wholesale, and distribution industries from all over the world, delivering the most
focused business platform available. Both of this event’s main objective is to build relationships with new
or existing clients, introducing and educate with the new guests on new products/services, personally
communicate with the guests, access to potential guests which may create source for new business,
increasing and promoting the value of the brand and obtaining useful market information from the guests.
Such opportunities are relatively important and beneficial to the company and is it important that the
employees should understand the goals and objective for participating this event. Strategic planning
should be introduced to the employees to ensure that they carry out their duties and focusing on the
strategy impose to successfully achieve their aims.

The selection of the specific event or activity that serves as the focal point for any corporate hospitality
experience is a critical aspect in determining the degree of effectiveness of this type of relationship
marketing in terms of delivering the highest acceptance rates from the invited target market. Similarly,
Spanish beer brand Estrella Damm uses their exclusive sponsorship deals by inviting a few guests from
FC Barcelona to join in the football matches in Barcelona. Practically, organizers can provide
sponsorships by inviting some of the famous chefs around the world such as Gordon Ramsey, Alain
Ducasse, Anne-Sophie Pic and Yoshirio Murata to participate in the FHA events to explore and taste
some of the unique foods made from the global food suppliers/vendors and participating in the FoodTech
segment which provides an opportune platform for over 100 leading solution providers showcasing an
extensive of technologies and innovation across these broad categories which are expected to help raise
brand awareness in this international platform.

Guests

The key to a successful event is to make sure the right audience attends. FHA Food & Beverages target
visitor profile has a wide range of different visitors from different sectors examples like Airline / Cruise
Liner / Rail, Importer / Wholesaler / Distributor and Manufacturer. With such a wide range of target
visitors, organizing a breakout session is one of the popular formats with up to 12 people in a group to
work together with brainstorming, conducting business exercises, or analyzing specific business issues.
The breakout session should match any of the sectors that has the same interest of their food choice so as
they can share their experience and unique innovation to develop their business further.

Invitation letter should also be sent to the potential guests in advance so to avoid losing to other
competitors who might invite them to the same event. The company must establish at least one key
outcome for each guest. Since business hospitality experiences are primarily social gatherings, these
desired outcomes are not likely to include anything as ambitious as closing a sale or agreement. official of
any nature. But other "softer" outcomes could include employees scheduling a later appointment with a
guest, agreeing to a follow-up call to discuss work, or getting a valuable referral to an important colleague
or guest.

Host
The success of a company's hospitality experience also depends on the performance of the management
members of the host company attending the event. The management can assign the key roles to their
employees with clear responsibility and expectation defined in each case. Employees is advisable not to
over-extend when doing business talks as it is preferably to create an entertaining and enjoyable
experience with the guests and also to acquire information, elongate the relationship with the guests, share
information with guest on their business plans and their goals ahead. Corporate hospitality training
programmes should be provided to their employees to ensure that they are equipped with the right skillset
and competencies to perform their job well.
1c) Hospitality gift should be arranged for such events as to a token of appreciation to their business
partners and new clients. Gifts and hospitality, including travel and entertainment, are standard corporate
practices for building connections and expressing gratitude. Within the corporate events sector, it is
customary for planners to receive little presents from vendors, such as a bottle of wine to their hotel room,
as well as standard courtesy items like free airport pick-up point, free food and beverages, and gratis
accommodations for site inspections.

On the other hand, accepting gifts, services, and hospitality can make an organization vulnerable to
injustice, prejudice, deception, and even allegations of illegal activity. Organizations must imply with
code policy to list down what are the dos and don’ts that outline both the restrictions and procedures
involved in giving and receiving these items. Extensive training should be provided to educates staff on
policies and circumstances that, while seemingly harmless, can generate a sequence of corruption
hazards, putting the business at risk and exposing it to more attention. Additionally, the compliance team
should offer a system for staff to report the violations of the code policy and obtain exceptions. Such
process must align with the compliance program. If a gift exception request is submitted, the compliance
team must be able to evaluate its risk by aligning with other initiatives including on-going due diligence
and other activities that are used to protect the organization from risk. The compliance team should
constantly analyze these requests at the highest level possible within the company, as well as among
receivers and requesters. To ensure that these assessments can take place in real-time, implementing a
strong reporting and analytics infrastructure should be in place.
Reference:
Davidson, R. (2018). Business Events (2nd Edition). Taylor & Francis.
https://suss.vitalsource.com/books/9781351736817

FHA Food and Beverages. (2022). Discover Exciting Marketing Opportunities [Brochure].

https://www.fhafnb.com/wp-content/uploads/FHFB-12PP-exhibitor-brochure-and-digital
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GAN INTERGRITY. (2020, September 15). Gifts and

hospitality. https://www.ganintegrity.com/compliance-glossary/gifts-and-hospitality

Institute of Business Ethics. (2012, November 10). The ethics of gifts & hospitality.
IBE. https://www.ibe.org.uk/resource/the-ethics-of-gifts-hospitality.html

Mike Fletcher. (2020, October 1). Corporate event planning guide | Cvent SG

blog. https://www.cvent.com/sg/blog/events/guide-corporate-event-planning

Patrick Hull. (2013, December 6). Don't Get Lazy About Your Client Relationships.
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sh=3159b1c02443

Sportsworld. (2018, December 6). Why you should use corporate

Hospitality. https://www.sportsworld.co.uk/why-use-corporate-hospitality/

SFFA. (n.d.). Speciality & Fine Food Asia. https://speciality-asia.com/

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