CVBs Boosting RFPs

<B> CVBs Boosting RFPs</B>

By Chris Davis

As the number of Web sites offering RFP capabilities increases, some corporate meeting buyers are looking at sites being offered by convention and visitors bureaus as avenues to reach a number of different hotel companies with a single click of the mouse.

At the same time, the CVBs who have stuck their toes in the online waters are reporting good results from the short-term corporate meetings market--and often from meeting buyers they never would have targeted.

"We've never heard of the people or corporations before in about 90 percent of the RFPs that we've received, so we think it's been great in bringing new business to our destination," said Dennis Edwards, sales and marketing vice president for the Fort Lauderdale CVB. "Apparently, it helps get the word out to people who we didn't even know we were getting the word out to."

Edwards receives about five RFPs per week and is able to turn about 20 percent into bookings. The meetings requested are primarily corporate and use a single property, he said, with an average of about six months lead time.

"In most cases, they know at least where they want to go geographically--either Florida or South Florida," he said. "I'd like to say that everyone e-mailing those RFPs has definitely selected Ft. Lauderdale, but that's not the case. Usually, they're looking at three or four destinations in Florida and we happen to be one of them. How they contact the others, I don't know."

In the nascent online booking world, CVBs have the ability to distribute leads across property brands, unlike hotel sites, and they don't act as a commissionable third party, unlike private sites.

Nearly all CVBs in New England now have RFP capabilities as part of Meetingpath, the centralized RFP system that distributes leads from a central server (<I>Meetings Today,</I> Feb. 22). The fact that most CVB sites, other than Meetingpath, don't have the ability to archive RFPs and their limited distribution could turn off some buyers.

"From the planner's perspective, if you're going to use the Internet, the best approach is to turn to a couple of sites to enter your meeting information on the RFP and then re-enter the new information from one meeting to the next," said technology consultant Doug Fox, president of Richmond, Va.-based Doug Fox Communications. "The whole idea of the Internet is to save time."

While there's nothing inherently superior in the fact that no commission is involved in a CVB site-generated booking, it does offer an alternative, Fox said.

"It's important for planners to find out what the arrangement is when using RFP systems," he noted. "Is the company that runs the Web site going to charge hotels a commission if it leads to a signed contract? Different Web sites have different policies, so find out how a company makes its money. It depends on what the planner wants."

Buyers that have used the RFPs on CVB sites report that their main motivation was finding a facility in a relatively specific location.

"I had a location in mind, so I went to the Web sites for the Santa Clara, San Jose and San Francisco CVBs because I wanted to see what kind of information I could find online," said Laura Bartholomew, event production manager for San Francisco-based Red Herring Communications. "There were RFPs on the sites, so I just filled it out that way, and it made the process a lot easier. We knew where we were going, and we went out from there to find a facility."

Bartholomew had never submitted an RFP online, through any site, before she did so over the three California sites.

John Galante, vice president of Wayland, Mass.-based EH Event Group, also looked to the CVB sites for a West Coast trade show he was planning for the year 2000, and successfully booked it in Santa Clara through the site. "I am more likely to make a request for information if somebody makes it easier for me on the Web with an RFP, but I wouldn't rule somebody out because they didn't have it," he said. "But I'd be less than happy, since it's an expected service."

Expected or not, only 10 to 20 percent of CVBs have an RFP capability, Galante estimated.

Galante said that he found the Santa Clara CVB Web site, among others, through the home page of the International Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus.

IACVB president and CEO Ed Nielsen said that while it seems natural for the association to establish a centralized RFP service for all convention and visitors bureaus, similar to Meetingpath, it's not coming anytime soon.

"We are exploring possibilities right now, but it is in the very preliminary stages," he said. "We are talking with a major industry organization, not a corporate entity. We're still exploring the possibilities of putting our databases together and creating a lead distribution and generation network. We're considering how we would do it, what it would look like, what the compatibilities and conflicts are. We have had discussions with several other companies at this point, none of which have borne fruit, but we're pursuing it. I don't know what the outcome will be."

Nielsen wouldn't elaborate on the other parties involved. He did acknowledge, though, that the concept is a good one in theory. "It would be ideal if there were a worldwide site that provided that service for all the destinations, but we're some years away from realizing that," he said. "Initiatives like Meetingpath bode well for the idea itself. The idea is a meritorious concept and it logically fits with the CVBs."

CVBs with RFP capability on their sites said they would welcome a network. "I wish IACVB had something up and running right now," said Steve Van Dorn, director of convention sales and marketing for the Santa Clara CVB. "Partnering is what it's all about these days, so I think it would be great."

Van Dorn also found most of the two dozen leads from Santa Clara's online RFP to be corporate and single property. "The associations still like to fax or mail their RFPs," he said, "but I think it's met our expectations. I hate to think where those 24 leads would have gone if we didn't have the RFP out there."

The Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority, in addition to the standard RFP, has designed a form specifically for short-term corporate meetings, and posted availability and rates for its hotels that planners can specifically request. "It seemed this was the best way to go for the corporate market since, unlike conventions and trade shows, there's not 18 or 24 months of lead time," said spokesperson Noreen Bodman. "This is more short term. It's a quick way to provide availability to corporate meeting planners, instead of having them call 13 properties."

ACCVA national sales manager Sandi Harvey said the short-term RFP, which went online in January, generated two confirmed bookings in its first month.

Other CVBs that currently don't have the functionality are making plans to add it. "We are going to be forming a partnership with PlanSoft, (<i>Meetings Today</i>, Feb. 22) and I see this happening between now and the end of the second quarter," said Joe Zion, vice president of sales and marketing of the Convention & Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland. "We want to make this a big part of our plan in the very near future."

As with all Internet-based commerce, time will tell if planners feel the technology will save more time than it takes to learn how to use it.

"If I've already got an RFP filled out, it's easier just to paste it to an e-mail than to fill out somebody else's," said Ken Pickle, manager of incentives and conferences for Safeco Corp. of Seattle. "But it's a nice service for them to offer, and if somebody didn't already have an RFP of their own filled out, it would make sense to use theirs. It boils down to a matter of convenience and time.