Organization of events at hotel Esplanade Zagreb during the COVID-19 pandemic

Organizacija događanja jedna je od usluga koja uvelike pridonosi ugledu i uspješnosti hotela. Dolaskom COVID-19 pandemije promijenio se način poslovanja u svijetu turizma pa tako i u Esplanade Zagreb hotelu. Mjere stožera najviše su odnosile se na okupljanja ljudi što je event menadžerima drastično otežalo proces poslovanja. Cilj ovog rada bio je prikazati na koji način je Esplanade Zagreb hotel, konkretno odjel za organizaciju događanja odgovorio na postavljene izazove u vrijeme COVID-19 pandemije. Provedenim istraživanjem u radu zaključuje se kako je unatoč velikom padu prometa odjel za organizaciju događanja u Esplanade Zagreb hotelu pokazao inovativnost i prilagodljivost u novonastaloj situaciji. Za postizanje cilja koristile su se istraživačke metode polustrukturiranog intervjua i usporedbe.The organization of events is one of the services that greatly contributes to a hotel's reputation and success. With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the way of doing business in the world of tourism has changed, including the Esplanade Zagreb Hotel. The measures introduced by the Civil Protection Headquarters were mostly related to social gatherings, which made the business process drastically more difficult for event managers. The aim of this paper was to show how the Esplanade Zagreb Hotel, specifically the events department, responded to the challenges posed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research carried out in the paper concludes that, despite the big drop in visitors, the department in charge of organizing events at the Esplanade Zagreb Hotel showed innovation and adaptability to the new situation. To achieve the goal, research methods of semi-structured interview and comparison were used. COVID-19, pandemic, hotel industry, Hotel Esplanade Zagreb, organization of event