Hotel Res Standard For Meetings Remains Elusive

Three years after the collapse of the Convention Housing Reservation Service and several months after the introduction of THISCO's UltraRes--both attempts to develop a standard, mechanized hotel reservations process for meetings--a dominant solution that is both efficient and cost-effective is a long way from pervading the market.

In this climate of uncertainty, convention bureaus are relying on "fax and feet" while evaluating solutions for the future.

"Defining our housing strategy is still a top priority," said Rick Binford, president and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Detroit Convention & Visitors Bureau. Although his CVB has just instituted a one-stop shop service for planners called Meetings Express (888-39-Express) and is taking more housing reservations for local hotels than ever before, the organization has yet to commit to an automated processing solution. "We've had to define our overall rebranding program for Detroit, and that has taken a great deal of time, but housing has always been a consideration," he said. "We hope to come up with a new strategy in the next six months."

At a recent International Association of Convention and Visitor Bureaus CEO forum he attended, the subject of housing stayed on the agenda for hours, Binford said.

"Everyone has a different approach," Binford noted. He pointed to several CVB heads he called "leaders in the industry" in terms of housing solutions. David Whitney, president and CEO of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, handles his reservation and registration process in house, "and has aggressively taken on bookings in that market," Binford said.

Richard Davis, CEO of the Salt Lake City Convention & Visitors Bureau, "originally did registration in house, then outsourced the process to cut costs and ended up reverting to an in-house process," Binford reported. "He is doing well with it."

And Washington, D.C., Convention & Visitors Association exec Daniel Mobley began outsourcing housing services to other bureaus several months ago.

"I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all approach, and there may never be," Binford said.

IACVB president Karen Jordan agreed, noting that housing is such an extensive topic with so many variables that she can't predict when or even whether an approach like UltraRes will--or should be--adopted by all members, even if the IACVB supports it.

"I can't speculate as to where the industry should be in terms of providing housing," she said. "The fact is that each CVB handles the problem differently, and many of those differences are dictated by the region that they're serving, how the hotels want to handle processing and how clients want to be serviced."

In recalling the CHRS initiative--which, unlike UltraRes, was a standardized front-end registration package that was designed to bypass the CRS while shuttling reservations data to hotels--Jordan pointed out that the lesson IACVB learned was that one solution can never fit all the organization's members.

UltraRes, which was beta tested last year by Hyatt Hotels Corp., International Travel Services and WorldTravel Partners, has nonetheless been generating some buzz in housing circles.

The solution--a unified protocol and digital switch that links housing providers to the room inventories of individual properties--was officially introduced to housing providers at the Professional Convention Management Association's trade show in San Antonio in January (Meetings Today, Dec. 1, 1996).

In the months since, many providers--whether CVB, third party or associations handling housing internally--have been extremely excited about the possibility of coming on board, said John Davis, president of Dallas-based Pegasus Systems Inc., which owns the THISCO (The Hotel Industry Switch Co.) subsidiary. While best suited to busy metropolitan markets that see plenty of citywide action, the solution can produce cleaner, more efficiently updated housing lists for any meeting, right up until the conference opens.

Early adopters include the CVBs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Vancouver, which are using it via WorldTravel Partners for blocking rooms in Hyatt hotels in their respective regions. In addition, the CVBs in Chicago and New Orleans are using the approach via ITS to book groups in Hyatt hotels, and association meeting planners responsible for handling their own housing are booking Hyatt through New York-based agency Travel Planner Inc.

Davis said that Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton and Westin are "extremely interested" in UltraRes, and that 10 to 15 hotel chains are "in the pipeline," although no contracts have yet been signed.

"We think that the 80-20 rule applies here. Once we get those chains officially signed on and they make the necessary minor adjustments to their respective central reservation systems, we'll pull in the housing providers in droves," Davis said. "We know hotels are interested--we developed this system because our hotelier shareholders said they needed to reduce processing cost and errors."

Are Fees Fair?

In the complicated world of housing, everyone complains about high costs and passes the buck--almost literally--to the attendee, who typically pays fees as high as $5 per night for the duration of the conference.

There are two components to the fee, Davis said: The first is registration costs, which include everything from the cost of badges to the booking of value-added conference services such as signing up guests for a tour and providing educational materials.

The second is reservation costs, which are typically $1 per transaction (when CVBs do the booking) with a 10 percent commission tacked on. But it costs less than that for CVBs to access hotels--whatever front-end system the bureau uses, Davis contended. "There's just no way that's the cost," he said. "That much I'll say on the record."

In the meantime, most housing providers are waiting for the hotels to clamber on board before committing to any system.

Jean Freidl, director of communications for the St. Paul CVB, said the organization just purchased a McCue registration system--an upgrade from the Custom Codes system used since the mid-'80s. But the system was purchased for its automated fax-back capabilities to the attendee, rather than for any automated link to hotels.

As far as communicating with properties, most of them prefer hard copy, Freidl said. "We're a 'feet and fax' shop and probably will be for some time," she said. "Of course, we're always on the lookout for the next big solution; you never know how helpful they might be.