<H1>Northwest Teams With TCI</H1>by Regina Eisman
<B>N</B>orthwest Airlines and The TCI Companies, a national meeting, incentive and event management firm, have inked a marketing partnership-the first of its kind between an airline and a destination management firm-in which they will jointly target the meetings and incentive travel business.
The two companies will "be acting as extensions of each other's sales and marketing staffs," said Valerie Sumner, director of marketing for TCI. TCI will encourage its clients and prospective clients to use Northwest as their airline when they hold a TCI-run event, while Northwest will let its corporate clients know that TCI is its partner company.
Bob Vitagliano, CEO of the Society of Incentive and Travel Executives, said he hadn't heard of such an alliance before. "It's new to me," he said.
Jennifer Miller, director of sales for The DMC Connection, a nationwide network of DMCs, also said she was unaware of another agreement like this one. She noted that an airline-DMC alliance made more sense than, say, a DMC-hotel alliance. "A hotel might be reluctant to partner with a DMC because a lot of hotels are now doing their own DMC services," she said.
The arrangement-which Sumner said came about through a "brainstorming effort"-is non-exclusive. "Certainly, Northwest clients don't have to use us, and our clients don't have to use Northwest," Sumner said. "This is just a way for us to capitalize on each other's marketing efforts."
Maureen Pickell, Northwest's manager of meeting and incentive sales, Eastern region, said such agreements made economic sense. "These days, as sales and marketing staffs are getting stretched pretty thin, we see the value in business partnerships," she said.
In addition to sharing sales leads, the partnership will include making joint sales calls, cooperative promotions and marketing materials targeted to the meeting and incentive market, and familiarization trips where buyers would be flown on Northwest and TCI would arrange the itinerary.
Although details of these strategies still are under development, Sumner said TCI and Northwest are planning their first client event, which probably will be held in November in Charlotte, N.C., where TCI opened an office in April. In addition, TCI is helping Northwest promote Association Dollars-Off Certificates (ADOC), a new discount program for the association market, by including information in its brochures and other program material. The companies also will talk up their alliance at the Incentive Travel & Meeting Executives Show, to be held Oct. 15 through 17 at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center.
Many of the promotions and events the companies are planning will be held in Northwest's U.S. hubs-Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis. Eventually, the marketing efforts will move overseas as well.
The partnership gives each company greater geographic reach. TCI will gain access to Northwest's strong customer base in the Midwest, as well as the opportunity to do more business overseas where Northwest flies.
Although TCI does some program management in Canada and Mexico, most of its business has been in the United States. "A lot of our domestic clients also do programs overseas, so that is a natural extension of business for us," Sumner said.
Conversely, the arrangement provides Northwest with more access to the northeastern U.S. market. "It's an opportunity for us to get better known in that area, where we're not as much of a household name as we are in the Midwest," Pickell said.
Northwest, whose overseas partner is KLM, serves more than 400 cities in 80 countries. The airline declined, however, to reveal its group business mix.
TCI clients who use the carrier will be able to take advantage of the airline's group and incentive fare programs, which, in addition to ADOC, include zone fares for groups, currently offering guaranteed rates through 1998; and corporate and association meetings discounts of 5 to 10 percent off the published fare.
Northwest clients who use TCI won't necessarily get a special rate because all of TCI's programs are customized, but "we will certainly be looking at ways to make a program more cost-effective for them," Sumner said.
TCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., manages about 200 events, incentive programs and meetings a year. The company's four divisions include the Capital Informer, which handles meetings and corporate events; Transportation Concepts International, which arranges ground transportation needs; TCI Marketing, which handles sponsorships and event marketing; and the newest unit, Team Concepts, which manages sponsored sporting events for trade associations and corporations.