Meetings Beat - 2000-03-20

<B>Meetings Beat</B>

<B>New Site Could Speed RFP Response</B>
Portsmouth, N.H.-based Newmarket International is beta testing MeetingBroker.com, a site designed to connect the growing multitude of sites with RFP capability to hotels and other properties that use its Delphi and Breeze sales automation software. The site will permit hoteliers to evaluate meetings RFPs using the software's functionalities, including a yield management assessment, which would enable a quicker response. It should be fully functional by June.

<B>Javits Hosts Webcasting Studio</B>
New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center has become the first U.S. convention center to build a Webcasting studio, enabling live or taped speeches, product introductions or press conferences to be broadcast over the Web. The studio was built by New York-based MediaOnDemand.com a Webcasting company that also will be the exclusive supplier of all necessary supplies and technological capability.

<B>Four Seasons Looks To Negotiate</B>
Nine Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts properties, trying to dispel notions of inflexible negotiations, are offering a summer meeting program that includes room rates between $125 and $175 and a $25 charge-back to the master account for every room night booked. The nine hotels are located in the Southwest, Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico.

<B>AllMeetings Lures StarCite Sales Exec</B>
Meeting portal Allmeetings.com (www.allmeetings.com) has hired former StarCite Inc. (www.starcite.com) sales executive Mike Malinchok as vice president of sales, and charged him with building a sales force to pitch the site's wares to corporate meeting and travel executives. Malinchok has an extensive background in corporate meetings through his work at StarCite, where he served as regional vice president of sales, and StarCite parent McGettigan Partners, where he was on the business development consolidation sales team.