Events; what went wrong! - CTI

My internship at Rogers Aviation (RAV) could not initiate at a more convenient time. Air Asia recently signed a contract with RAV and first landed to Mauritius during the first week of October – flying from Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to Mauritius three times a week.

The annual national event - Salon du prêt-à-partir (Travel Fair – Ready to go) which took place on October 7th-9th, featured some tourism and aviation firms showcasing their company’s offers and special deals for the fair. RAV had seven partners present expressly Air Seychelles, Air France, South African Airways, Air Asia, Holidays by BlueSky, Croisières Australes and BlueSky American Express Global Business Travel. I was assigned to work specifically with Air Asia and I used the Event Plan from PR Techniques as guidance. Furthermore, I wrote the press release for RAV’s website with regards to the event.

My main duties were  

• to handle the staff (duty roster, transportation, meal allowance and briefing prior to the event)

• to communicate with the event organiser EventsPlus with regards to Air Asia’s stall setting and inquiries

The most vital PR tasks for the event planning were conducted at Air Asia’s headquarters in Malaysia, with regards to the flyers and goodies in sync to their promotional offers for the Mauritian market.

What went wrong?

The turnout for all three consecutive days were unexpected. Air Asia had most visitors compared to other stalls which resulted in clients queuing up for hour(s) although we had seven sales agents. Moreover there was a huge miscommunication with regards to the offers. All promotional seats were sold out on Friday which meant that guests coming in on Saturday and Sunday would not benefit from the advertised deals. This led to many outraged guests arguing that it was false advertising and bad for the brand's image. I was the only one with adequate PR knowledge to recognize that in our world, this was a full-blown crisis. With permission of the Team Leader I took the initiative to communicate with the crowd, in which she was very happy with my proposal. I went to the guests in line and explained that promotions for particular months were over and that they would get much higher fees or should be open to other deals for other months. I also proceeded to telling them the extra charges that were excluded from the flight fare which most of them appreciated. To help me further, I gathered the ushers and had a brief to quickly disseminate these information and reduce built up frustrations.

Although this had nothing to do with our Mauritian agents, at some point I did feel guilty and to blame for the whole false advertising fiasco, this was pure miscommunication. However, I am grateful that I was around because I have learned so much and I feel much prepared to tackle events. I’ve practiced multiple times (in-class, assignments, personal events and this fair) on how to prepare for an event but realized that during and aftermath of events are as important.

Press play to see some photos from the event.

Aside to mastering an event plan, do you think a crisis plan should be drafted for corporate events? This is what I was thinking the whole time once the ‘scenario’ unfolded. Our in-class crisis simulation had always been about an incident or anything affecting our organisation after it had initiated. So what if intertwined both for prevention (events and crisis), similarly to the the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) I’m working on for RAV.

Let me know what you think below.