Getting a handle on small meetings remains a challenge even
for mature travel programs, though companies that tackle them stand to find
significant savings in their overall meetings and travel spending levels,
according to a panel at the National Business Travel Association International
Convention and Expedition in Houston this month.
Small meetings represent the lion's share of events for many
companies, with about 86 percent of meetings having fewer than 100 attendees,
said NBTA groups and meetings committee vice chair and StarCite vice president
of business development Linda McNairy. Many companies, however, still can't
quantify small meetings within their company, she said.
"A lot of companies still push it off and aren't sure
what to do with it," McNairy said.
Some companies also have been reluctant to devote energy and
resources to controlling those meetings because they don't see it as a worthy
pursuit. "Some have said the return on investment isn't enough for that
particular organization," said Charlene Rabideau, senior vice president of
account management and operations for BCD Meetings and Incentives.
A large portion of these meetings, however, often are
planned by administrators, not travel managers or meeting planners, who might
be unaware of procedures to best handle the meetings, said Renee Epple, vice
president of global innovations for American Express Business Travel.
"It really is a notion of this is unmanaged spend, and
it's a worthy cause to try to get our arms around them," she said.
Marriott International vice president of global sales
intermediaries Julius Robinson said inexperienced planners often do not realize
obligations when they are signing contracts and are surprised when having to
deal with cancellation and attrition issues that arise later.
Those buyers who have targeted small meetings reported
significant savings from their efforts. Tim Bone, director of union
conventions, events, meetings and travel for Service Employees International
Union, said his organization recently turned its focus to small meetings. Prior
to that, the meetings often were booked ad hoc by administrators, through
vendors with which SEIU did not have negotiated agreements or through improper
channels.
Using data from purchasing cards, invoices and the expense
reporting tool, Bone aggregated information to show senior management the cost
and importance of small meetings.
"We had the policy rewritten that everything has to
flow through the meetings department," Bone said. "Catching data is
easy because of the expense tool, and the cost associated with those meetings
are up to the departments' budgets."
Bone chose an outsourced model to handle small meetings,
working through planners employed by StarCite. Individual administrators who
want to keep control of small meetings can still do so as long as they go
through the proper channels, Bone said.
"We have an engine that can help you source and book,
and you can control that yourself or use external meeting planners," Bone
said. "We're now able to capture what we were not tracking."
SEIU's average savings on meetings ranges between 20 and 30
percent, Bone said.
Marriott's Robinson said one challenge with small meetings
is that planners often blanket multiple hotels with complicated requests for
proposals. "Hotels receive hundreds of thousands of leads each year, so if
you're sending out a lead to 50 hotels, that will take a lot longer to process,"
he said. "You have to figure out how to create the right balance and
create enough information to get a lead response."
Siemens director of event management services Bobby
Badalamenti said her company has addressed small meetings with an RFP designed
specifically for them, with specific choices pre-negotiated for planners. "When
you have a preferred supplier relationship, and they work with you, it's easy
to do," she said.
Robinson said many of the obstacles that come from managing
small meetings stem from buyers and planners not working with their preferred
suppliers.
"It's like if a company was designing a car but not
talking to all the different people who make the parts," Robinson said. "If
you know your objectives, we can help you meet them."