Starwood Taps Hyatt Veteran To Head Meetings, Groups

<B> Starwood Taps Hyatt Veteran To Head Meetings, Groups</B>

By Chris Davis

After nearly 18 months of relative meetings-market dormancy, Starwood has made its second major move in as many months by naming a Hyatt veteran to head its meeting and group sales efforts.

Christie Hicks, formerly Hyatt's vice president of national sales, is Starwood's new vice president of global sales for North America, where she will oversee not only the chain's meetings and conventions, but also incentives and other segmented sales departments.

While the position itself is not new, it will involve more responsibility under a new configuration. "This job is now much more expansive and important," said Bob Moore, Starwood's senior vice president of global sales, to whom Hicks will report. Moore is a newcomer to the chain himself, having been hired in July from the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Hicks also will lead telesales efforts, Moore said, which is a key cog in Starwood's marketing to corporations that do not use meeting professionals to plan all their meetings.

"We realized there were efficiencies and alignment issues that would be more effective and productive with one leader," Moore said.

Starwood hadn't established a chainwide meetings program after it acquired the Westin brand and merged with ITT Corp.--acquiring the Sheraton brand in the process in late 1997 (<I>BTN</I>, Oct. 27, 1997)--until it created the Preferred Planner program in August (<I>Meetings Today</I>, Sept. 20).

The flurry of meetings activity isn't coincidental, said Moore. "We're seeing the manifestation of growing and merging pains," he said. "Now it's out of the way, and we can focus on our customers and properties."

Hicks said her immediate goals center on ensuring Starwood handles the basics of meetings sales and service properly, before the chain considers further expanding its meeting offerings.

"We need to enhance the level of the global sales organization and its profile with internal and external customers," Hicks said. "The basics have to be absolutely correct before we can get creative."

But Starwood nevertheless sees the meetings future, Moore said, and it's online. Like all major chains, Starwood is working to enable the capability to book meetings over the Web. Nobody has been able to offer that option yet, primarily because of the difficulties of including available meeting space in online reservation systems.

"It's a huge issue, but it's solvable and that's what customers want," Moore said. "It's a great race to introduce online meeting booking and we're right in it." He wouldn't offer a potential timeframe as to when the capability might debut.

Prior to joining Starwood, Hicks had spent her entire career at Hyatt, which culminated in a position as vice president of national sales. The lure of Starwood's 700 properties versus Hyatt's 185 and the increased consequence of her decision making proved sufficient for her to head to White Plains, N.Y.

"I'm moving from a much smaller base of accounts to a much larger one," Hicks said. "It gives me the opportunity to have much more of an impact.