Business events ethics

This chapter begins by highlighting the differences between personal ethics and professional ethics. Focusing on ethics in the workplace, the uses and challenges of corporate and professional codes of conduct are discussed, including the role of professional codes of conduct in indicating to the general public what standards of behaviour can be expected from members of any profession. There follows a review of the most common ethical dilemmas faced by business events professionals: fam trips, gifts, airline and hotel loyalty points, hotel commissions, theft of intellectual property through the Request for Proposal system, the use or non-use of destinations that are openly hostile to minority communities, and the poor personal conduct of participants. The chapter ends with an analysis of the ethical codes of businesses and associations active in the business events industry.