Sheraton Puts Tech Tools Into

Taking their lead from research on about 1,500 meeting planners and attendees, ITT Sheraton has begun testing a new brand of meeting facilities designed to address the technology requirements of planners.

Called the Smart Meeting Room, the facility will feature better ergonomics and efficiency-building technology tools, and will be offered in six Sheraton Hotels and Resorts on a trial basis this year. The New York Hotel & Towers, Sheraton Boston Hotel & Towers, Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina, Sheraton Bal Harbour Beach Resort in Florida, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel and the Sheraton Park Central Hotel in Dallas will all participate in the trial run this summer.

By the end of 1998, ITT Sheraton will begin offering the Smart Meeting Room in all of its company-owned and managed Hotels & Resorts in North America, with franchised hotels in the U.S. and Canada offering the new product by the end of 1999.

"Business travelers tell us again and again that they need to stay productive on the road," said Frank Camacho, senior vice president, director of marketing and operations staff for ITT Sheraton's North America division. "It's changed the way they use hotels--and we want to offer accommodations that work the way they do."

Camacho added that the research on meeting room facilities was a continuation of efforts the chain has made to better service the corporate market. "This complements the research done in 1995 which led to the development of the Corporate Club Room, which allows individual corporate travelers to have a virtual office on the road."

With the Smart Room concept, bonified conference facilities replace hastily modified ballrooms. Facilities are equipped with movable, flexible tables that have built-in power outlets to accommodate personal computers, keyboards and laptops. Lighting and temperature controls will be in the room for easy adjustment by meeting participants. Walls will be tackable with brackets to hold presentation materials.

In addition to a true conference room design, the facility will offer digital light processors to support video conference units and that are compatible with personal computers for presentation usage. Also included in the rooms are GlobalVue videoconferencing equipment as well as conference telephones. ISDN lines, Local Area Networks, ISP/Internet access, analog and digital voice lines also will run from the conference rooms.

Finally, a dedicated hotel employee, specially trained to assist with all the equipment, will be on hand to service the Smart Meeting Room.

Sheraton--which announced the installation of a full-service conference facility within the New York Hotel & Towers (BTN, March 17)--joins an elite cadre of hotel chains seeking to make its meetings facilities, if not exact replicants of conference centers, then far more serious and pleasing to the eye than the average hotel meeting space.

To reach the conclusion that serious conference facilities had a serious market, Sheraton engaged in research over a four-month period, beginning with a survey conducted in conjunction with Texas Instruments at last Fall's COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas. More than 1,200 attendees answered questions about the technology they use while traveling and the environments in which they work.

Feedback was then incorporated from ITT Sheraton's Meetings Advisory Board of 30 meeting planners, who were asked to design their ideal meeting rooms, taking into consideration the technology and services available in those rooms as well as their ideal dimensions.

Margaret Moynihan, director of conferences and travel at Deloitte & Touche, said she participated in a two-tiered focus group. Initially, everyone was asked to brainstorm, and tell Sheraton personnel what the perfect room would be. No stone--chair, audiovisual equipment, layout or design feature--was left unturned. In the follow-up session, Sheraton came to the planners with what they had on the drawing board. Moynihan was pleased.

"Basically, what they developed for us was a professional environment. No off colors, hard walls instead of those temporary pull down type walls, reasonable ceiling heights. This was a place that didn't look like a lab or university setting. It didn't look like a resort either. It looked like an upscale boardroom that a corporation might have in its headquarters." Moynihan said Sheraton also showed flexibility on pricing, and discussed the possibility of a complete meeting package or unbundeled charges depending on the program.

Finally, ITT Sheraton surveyed a group of 240 corporate, association and independent meeting planners with the same questions. The research demonstrated that today's meeting planner and attendee relies on technology tools to stay efficient.

The findings reinforced notions of a business community "gone wired." Planners said participants used laptops 75 percent of the time during meetings, and used them for both taking notes and generating and presenting ideas.

For those attending small meetings, 75 percent rate the meeting room as the most important place to get work done while traveling. In addition, more than 70 percent view a sound technological platform as critical for their meetings today. This includes such features as extensive wall power outlets, ISDN and T1 lines, teleconferencing and videoconferencing capabilities, and access to the Internet.