Radisson Makes Connection

<B> Radisson Makes Connection</B>
<I>Videoconferencing To Hit Twice The Sites</I>

By Chris Davis

Radisson Hotels Worldwide, banking on the hope that videoconferencing eventually will be considered a mandatory hotel amenity by business travelers, is doubling the number of properties that offer the service.

While the decision to offer videoconferencing is being left to the management of the individual properties, the Minneapolis-based chain expects that 100 will offer access to VirtuaLINC Corp.'s PC-based videoconferencing network by the end of 1999. Currently, 45 properties have the system.

Dallas-based VirtuaLINC enables users to link to other high-speed public and private networks, officials said. Radisson hotels will offer the service for about $75 per hour.

Even while videoconferencing's profile continues to increase among travel managers and meeting planners (Meetings Today, March 22), the waters have turned increasingly choppy of late. Hilton Hotels recently acknowledged it is reconsidering its relationship with TeleSuite, a life-size, full-screen network that had been installed in seven properties (Meetings Today, July 5). Meanwhile, videoconferencing provider PictureTel Corp. had to recall its SwiftSite II system (Meetings Today, May 17), though it has since reintroduced it to the market.

Although the Radisson network is much less costly to install and takes up less space than the Hilton TeleSuite project--albeit with smaller screens that allow fewer participants in view at the same time--it's not a foolproof bet for the hotel. Evidence that videoconferencing is a draw for business travelers or meeting planners remains scant.

Radisson is positioning the service as primarily for job interviews and impromptu meeting venues for disparate executives. But Radisson--and other chains--would be wiser to tout the service for meetings or executives addressing a group of people, according to videoconferencing consultant Ann Earon, president of Skillman, N.J.-based Telemanagement Resources International.

"If you're conducting a job interview over a hotel's videoconferencing network, and it's a dog that you want to end after five minutes, you're still charged for the full hour," Earon said. "Conversely, if it's great and you want to go past 60 minutes, you're cut off."

Earon said much of the trouble hotel chains have encountered in the past was a result of poor marketing of their videoconferencing services. Should Radisson succeed in overcoming that challenge, Earon thinks the chain will be well-positioned for what she sees as a trend toward meeting attendees expecting videoconferencing services in hotels.

"Attendees will be singing a different song," Earon said. "Instead of just looking for hotels that have videoconferencing, people will expect that capability to be available from their hotel suite."

Within the next three to five years, she said, hotel guests and attendees likely will consider using additional videoconferencing capabilities, like streaming video that can be stored and replayed, commonplace.

Jeff Wood, general manager of the Radisson Central Dallas, one of the properties installing videoconferencing, said hotels that currently have the capability tend to use it more for one-on-one interviews. However, he said that's likely to change. "As videoconferencing grows in the future, it will be used more and more by the meetings market," he said. "The highest usage is with individuals now, with some conferences. But we think it will become more enticing to planners when they realize they can save money by doing it this way instead of flying everyone in."

But even meeting buyers who say they use videoconferencing rarely choose properties specifically for their videoconferencing capability. Rod Peterson, director of meetings and travel at AmerUs Life in Des Moines, Iowa, said he is a strong proponent of videoconferencing and uses external networks but doesn't base his hotel selections on whether that capability is available.

"It's not a factor for us because we haven't meshed those two philosophies together yet," Peterson said. "We'll either go to the hotel and do it the old-fashioned way or use videoconferencing and do it the new way."

But he does believe that the Radisson decision is a wise one, as he speculates that use of the technology in the meetings industry will continue to proliferate. "Meeting planners are going to be forced to look at videoconferencing sooner or later," he said. "It's great that Radisson is doing this, but they need to have a high availability of the network through a number of locations. You don't want to have people hooked up to all different networks."

Ralston Purina Co. of St. Louis has an internal videoconferencing network, but there hasn't been much of a demand to expand its application beyond internal one-to-one communications, according to manager of meeting and travel services Annette Morris.

"Once the company established videoconferencing a few years back, we discussed ways to incorporate it into the meetings program," Morris said. "But there just hasn't been a surge of requests from attendees to do so."

There still are a significant number of buyers who haven't incorporated videoconferencing of any kind into their meetings programs.

"Videoconferencing is a great tool but it only touches a certain amount of people, and the cost is still up there," said Euclid Strayhorn, manager of conference services for Unigroup of Fenton, Mo. "I still prefer having people meet in person, since videoconferencing can't replace the networking and objectives of a meeting."

Mary Zack, Radisson manager of group and incentive sales and marketing, said the chain feels interest will be higher in different areas of the country, which is why they're leaving the call up to the individual properties. She said, "Most hotels incorporating videoconferencing are in areas that support business or that are a little more technologically advanced.