Airport Hotels Increasingly Cater To Meetings Market

<B> Airport Hotels Increasingly Cater To Meetings Market</B>

By Chris Davis

Hotel companies, buoyed by a stride stream of corporate meetings revenue generated by their airport sites, are continuing to develop dozens of new airport properties with amenities and technological capabilities that rival the largest downtown hotels, all in an effort to keep those meetings coming.

Meeting buyers, while traditionally attracted to airport properties due to the ease of transporting attendees to and from the meeting locale, have occasionally expressed the belief that booking at an airport property means sacrificing the high level of downtown service.

While hotel companies have long resisted that notion, a new generation of recently built and planned properties aim to prove it."As airports have grown and expanded, they've become magnets for regional sales meetings and other small corporate meetings," said Patrick Ford, president of Portsmouth, N.H.-based Lodging Econometrics, the research division of National Hotel Realty.

"As a consequence, hotel companies have designed both their guestrooms and meetings rooms to cater to the corporate traveler staying three days or so," Ford said. "Hotels are introducing and designing more spacious guestrooms with additional workspace and high-tech outlets. The meeting rooms are designed for about 40 with a boardroom environment, including the latest audiovisual equipment and teleconferencing capability."

Seventy-three hotels, representing more than 10,000 guestrooms, are under construction at 54 airport markets monitored by Lodging Econometrics. These properties include full-service, meetings-ready hotels as well as smaller, limited-service properties. Chicago, with its two airports, is the epicenter of airport hotel development, with six properties under construction. San Francisco, Dallas/Fort Worth and Jacksonville are hosting four under-development hotels apiece.

Ford said airport hotel development has been spurred by an increase in flights and the renovation or addition of many large airport terminals. Ford pointed to last month's opening of the $100 million, 600-room Hilton Boston Logan Airport, which occurred in the midst of a three-year, $1 billion Logan International Airport improvement program as the primary example of this trend. The upgrade included a large terminal expansion by the Massachusetts Port Authority, Delta Air Lines and US Airways.

The Hilton Logan, connected directly to the airport's terminals via a skybridge, sports 20 meeting rooms and 30,000 square feet of meeting space, which feature high-speed Internet access and videoconferencing capability.

"We want planners to have all the conveniences without any sacrifice," said Michael Curran, Hilton's vice president of franchise marketing.

For some planners, the airport property is an easy sell. These hotels are well-versed in the paucity of lead time corporate buyers often have to set up their meetings, meaning guest room and meeting room space is usually available. For quick, small meetings, airport properties, particularly those in airline hub cities, often are accessible from many different cities, smoothing transportation and airline negotiation.

"Actually, many of the employees here request an airport hotel when they want a meeting," said Jane Ambrose, corporate meeting planner with Santa Clara, Calif.-based Guidant Corp. "They can take a shuttle from the airport and it's much easier for them."

Guidant meetings, particularly those involving high-level executives, often require high-speed Internet access, and Ambrose said airport properties have been able to meet the need."Of course, it depends on the level and brand of the hotels you're using," Ambrose said. "But there's a consistency with other types of properties, like downtown."

But not everyone shares that view. "We direct some of our small meetings to airport properties because it's easy to get in and out, which I think is really the only advantage," said Eve Edwards, corporate meetings and events manager at Mentor Graphics Corp. of Wilsonville, Ore. "We've found the rates to be somewhat higher than other properties, and I don't see the service level." Edwards also feels airport hotels lack the technological capability of downtown properties.

Hilton's Curran said he's aware of such sentiments, but he feels they don't apply today. "Our own research has told us that some customers perceive a difference in downtown full-service properties versus airport hotels," Curran said. "I don't think it's a valid comparison anymore. Look at our properties at O'Hare International Airport and at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport. Or at Logan. These properties are as state-of-the-art as you can get. They're the poster children for that capability."

Curran said the 52 airport properties nationally that Hilton owns, manages or franchises get about a quarter of their revenues directly from corporate clients, with slightly more than another quarter coming from individual business travel.

Still, for many corporate buyers, the bottom line will determine whether an airport property or another type will play the host to their meetings.

"If an airport hotel's offer is more attractive, especially if they throw in free shuttle service or an LCD projector, that's great," said Kerri Koenig, associate manager of conference and event management for Basking Ridge, N.J.-based AT&T Corp. "If they don't have the technological capability we need, then they're eliminated.