Omni Changes Hands, Staff

<H1> Omni Changes Hands, Staff</H1>By Cheryl Rosen

<B>C</B>orpus Christi, Texas - The Feb. 29 acquisition of Omni Hotels North America by TRT Holdings Inc. has resulted in the departure of a number of longtime meeting industry contacts and supporters-including such familiar names as Chuck Magill, Jan Pollard, Bill Thompson and Victor Chin. And it again reminded corporate planners of the often transient nature of personal relationships with hoteliers.

However, new Omni president Jim Caldwell vowed to win planners back by investing heavily in the quality and quantity of Omni Hotels-and in creating brand new relationships in the industry. "Omni realizes that some personal relationships have been affected, and that's traumatic for everyone," said Caldwell. "But any time you have new owners, you have some people they bring with them and some change in direction."

<B>Emphasis On Contacts

</B>The issue of maintaining business relationships in the face of management change is an increasingly frequent challenge for planners in an age of mergers and downsizing. "The market rewards productivity-and in today's world that means providing services that customers deem worth their expense, at low cost," said Don Blohowiak, a former executive and incentive planner at a Fortune 150 company who is now a writer and speaker on "managing radical change."

"The harsh reality is that most customers are very concerned with price and value and have little concern for those who actually produce the work," Blohowiak said. "If service does not deteriorate, then, arguably, management has made no blunder, according to the rules of capitalism. The real question, in the case of Omni and for others who would replace a major part of its collective intelligence and management continuity, is this: Will customers notice?"

If there is a customer base that does notice staff changes, it's surely professional meeting planners, whose success or failure so often is judged by the performance of the hotel people whom they choose as partners. In a heated discussion on MPINet, the electronic Bulletin Board/Forum of Meeting Professionals International, several planners mourned the loss of longtime partners and predicted that Omni will lose business as planners choose the familiar contact over the familiar property.

"I can't stress enough how important a good relationship with key players is in terms of service, time and money," said Louise Felsher, national meeting planner at Cortext in Los Altos, Calif. "All of us know of properties that are considered draws based on their 'prime real estate' or 'prestige destination,' but whose value is nullified by an inadequate staff and/or ownership. Most damaging here is the insult inflicted on all parties when a new management team completely disregards the reciprocal financial gain derived from a long-term business relationship between planner and supplier."

<B> New Faces

</B>But Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based planner Carol Krugman of Krugman+Whitehead acknowledged that while her "loyalty lies first and foremost with people," she would not summarily dismiss an Omni, or any property, just because a contact is gone. "If the property is important to me, I will take the time to form a new relationship-and pray that the new people hang around for a while," she said.

That's just what Omni is-quite literally-betting on. "We are putting some new faces in front of planners, but I hope they will give our people a chance, and that our relationships will be restored," said Caldwell, noting that he expects to continue, if not increase, Omni's support of industry associations like MPI.

Before the Omni acquisition, TRT's portfolio of properties included two Marriott franchises, two Wyndhams, a Sheraton and a Doubletree, and one independent property, the Tucson National Golf and Conference Resort. The chain will now have 42 properties in all, including two currently under development: the Crescent Court in New Orleans and a Kansas City property scheduled to open this spring.

Facing up to the inevitability of change in the hotel industry, many planners do seem ready to give Omni a try. Said independent planner Lynn Tiras of Houston, "I've had to deal with personnel changeovers at hotels many times, as I am sure every planner has. And while that really makes it tough, no one ever knows what will happen tomorrow."

That makes it crucial for all planners to get everything in writing, she added, "because that sales contact may be gone by the time you have a meeting."

Independent planner Joan Eisenstodt of Washington, D.C., noted that she includes "a clause that says if the management or ownership of a hotel changes, our client can terminate without penalty."

While noting that she "would not cancel easily; you want to have faith," she also said that "going from a Loews to a Wyndham [as the Anatole in Dallas, did, for example] is not the same as going from an Omni to an unknown.