Free Stays and Fine Wines: Suppliers Speak Out About Unethical Buyer Behavior

The director of group sales for a city’s convention bureau could hardly contain her annoyance.

She was hosting a group of planners, among them a meeting planner from an organization poised to bring a convention with 2,000 attendees. For dinner, she chose a restaurant rooted in local history, and hand-picked a menu featuring its specialties. 

Instead of pouring himself a glass of wine from the bottle already on the table, the planner pointed to an extremely pricey bottle from the restaurant’s fine wine collection and asked to 'try it out.' 

 “I had no choice but to ask for it to be uncorked, but I was shocked at his lack of decorum,” she said.

Erosion of Trust  

Unethical buyer behavior like this is something that suppliers like Andy Ortiz, managing director at Global Incentive Management, a DMC in Cancun, know well. “The majority of planners I have done business with back in my hotel days and the last 15 years as an owner of a destination management company are professionals and ethical. However, I have encountered many others that simply want to take advantage, especially in a destination like Cancun.”

Buyers make requests for everything from room upgrades or extended stays to comped theater or concert tickets. At times, they don’t even have a serious piece of business for the hotel or destination. Some don’t have clients at all.

Ortiz has been working to raise awareness of unethical site inspections for several years. It’s a practice he says has picked up since Covid.

“In the late ‘80s and early to mid-’90s, there was more trust. A buyer would come and do a site inspection, and you knew whether the business was going to your hotel. You also knew they had the business. That has changed.”

Several years ago, Ortiz started a web site where suppliers could report abusers, ethicalmeetingplanners.com, but he has since shut it down. “The suppliers didn’t want to go public,” he said. (His Facebook page is still operational and he encourages people to join and post their experiences.)  

Due Diligence is Key

What can the business events industry be doing to avoid this? For one, says Marriott International Market Director Sales + Marketing John Klukan, companies can put their own standard operating procedures in place. “Many Fortune 500 companies follow the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission guidelines for gifts and entertainment,” he said.

Klukan, who has a long history as a GM at several Texas hotels, shuts down unethical requests immediately. “Depending on the size and value of the program, that  would guide the number of comp rooms and nights,” he said. “As far as planners who want to arrive a day early or stay a day late and ask for a second room or whatever, for whatever reason, I typically do not honor the request.”  

Ortiz is diligent about screening. He not only requires planners’ meeting histories (he recommends getting two years’ worth of activity), but also contacts each hotel they list to see if they actually held a program there.

“There are planners who have entire web sites set up so they can take these trips — and they don’t have a single piece of business,” he said. 

As a DMC, he has also found himself in a bind (as do other suppliers, such as restaurants and attractions) when he has been asked to provide complimentary buses to support a fam. 

At times, the hotel or CVB host has not sufficiently vetted the attendees, or refuses to share the planner list and how they were chosen. “It's difficult to say no, because you don't want to lose that relationship,” he said.

Ortiz also admits that some unethical suppliers are part of the problem. “Some of these hosts are inviting planners whether they have business or not, because they want to show off to their bosses, like the GM or director of marketing. 

“When they do that, they’re only enabling bad behavior.”