Buyers Seek Electronification of Hotel Registration

<B> Buyers Seek Electronification of Hotel Registration</B>

By Barbara Cook

Meeting buyers are adopting automation to speed and simplify their dealings with hotels, but the personal touch is still important in the negotiating and proposal process.

In a recent Meetings Monitor poll, fully 54 percent of 536 respondents said they consider it "very" or "extremely" important for hotels to be capable of receiving meeting registration information electronically. But they are less concerned with using technology in the proposal process, though more than half say it takes more than a day to get an answer to their queries (see chart, page 25).

Terry Haskell, a meeting planner for Musco Corp. in Iowa, for example, has few issues with the current request for proposal process. He usually gets answers to his RFPs in about two days. "Two business days to complete the request for proposal process is about right," he said. "If it's a weekend or Thursday, I don't get it back until Monday and that's alright. Our meetings are small, so it's easy to do the RFP on paper." And he likes to conduct a site visit and sit down with the hotel staff to discuss his meeting requirements in person, he said.

But that's not to say that he has no use for technology--and Haskell finds the Internet a valuable source of purchasing information. "I do a lot of site looking that way because so many hotels have floor plans," he said.

At the other end of the spectrum is Stephen Clark, assistant vice president of conference and travel services at CUNA Mutual Group in Madison, Wis., who finds the use of e-mail almost indispensable in the RFP process. He attaches a traditional spec sheet to an e-mail for each of the more than 300 meetings, ranging up to 1,200 delegates each, his department plans each year. Turnaround time for the RFP may be longer than two business days if the meeting is substantial, he said, but verification of availability "comes right back with the electronic RFP."

Indeed, one member of his staff "almost will not work with a hotel if they can't do almost the entire process electronically," he said. "She does her day-to-day bidding all electronically. If hotels can't respond, it's a strike against them. She wants rooming lists, everything, completely electronic."

While the increase in room rates over the past three years has resulted in "culture shock" in corporate budgets, Clark said that large meetings still merit price concessions, including complimentary cocktail receptions, complimentary limo runs, room upgrades and free staff rooms.

For assistant vice president Barbara Barnett at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, a major change in the hotel RFP process that she has noticed--and does not like--over the past 18 months is the addition of a revenue commitment to the contract. "The hotels are asking us what we will spend, and putting it in the contract as a commitment," she said. "It says that if you want this meeting space, then here is what we expect you will spend. I won't commit to that. What if I have a disastrous day and few registrants?"

Many insiders agreed that in general, the proposals they are receiving from hotels continue to include tighter cancellation policies.

Meanwhile, stepping up to the technology front more than in the past is Eileen Leddy, manager of travel and meeting services at Venator Group, formerly known as the Woolworth Corp. Leddy said her office is currently upgrading its systems and will in the future place greater reliance on Internet accessibility for booking meetings. While her office isn't yet set up to use an electronic process, she added, "It would be nice, and we are heading in that direction."

Winning concessions from meetings hotels at the present time isn't a foregone conclusion, Leddy agreed, though she added that "there is still room to negotiate, especially in the room rate."

To ensure that her department is being quoted competitive rates, Leddy always seeks bids from at least three different properties.

"It all depends on how hungry the hotel is, and it's worth asking for a better price," she said. "If you have three bids, you know the going price." And soft dollar perks, such as VIP room upgrades, are still available, she said.

Jan Dunlavey, conference manager for the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C., said she finds that it takes closer to five days to complete the booking process for her meetings. She prefers to deal with hotels by telephone and to send the property a spec sheet only after she has spoken with a representative. "I like the personal touch," she said.

Dunlavey acknowledged that she may have an easier time gaining availability at hotels than many buyers because she represents state governors, and hotels "like to have these high profile people." Still, even she has no guarantee that hotels will grant concessions during the negotiating process, she said.

Rose Ann Howard, convention and travel services manager at KFC Corp. in Louisville, Ky., said she uses e-mail in her dealings with hotels. Her office acts as the housing bureau for her company's meetings--a practice she said she plans to continue, rather than allowing attendees to electronically contact the hotel themselves.

Howard's office currently plans about 50 meetings annually and allows an average of two days as the full turnaround time that it takes to receive a completed proposal from a hotel.