SmartRFP Debuts

<B> SmartRFP Debuts</B>
<I>New Website Even Negotiates Contracts</I>

By Chris Davis

As the travel industry looks for ways to move the request-for-proposal process online, a new Internet-based site selection and negotiation service is hoping to carve itself a niche by beating its competitors at their own game. When dealing with meeting buyers, it believes, speed is the key to winning customers.

Unlike established online RFP services, where planners look through lists of properties for ones that fit their requirements, SmartRFP (www.smartrfp.com) not only finds appropriate sites, but also negotiates the contracts.

Meanwhile, among the more established RFP sites, PlanSoft is private labeling its database for Meeting Professionals International's Website, EventSource is continuing to develop its database of properties and information, and Meetingpath hopes to broaden its reach.

As more planners turn to the Internet for meeting planning support, it seems that there's plenty of room for entrepreneurs to provide a profitable service. "People aren't developing these sites for their health," said consultant Jeffrey Rasco of HMR Associates in Wimberley, Texas. "If you can be a portal for planners and provide the necessary tools and support, you can be profitable."

SmartRFP officials hope that will be the case. Built by Cardinal Communications and financed by Cardinal, Olsen Incentives of San Francisco and other investors, the site is designed to save planners the maximum amount of time. "A lot of planners want to just put their specs out there and get the job done, rather than search for hotels and submit an RFP, only to find there's no space available," said Cardinal president Rod Marymor. At SmartRFP, planners can limit their property choices by area, brand or type. Once an RFP is received, Sue Sanger and Natalie Koyama, two veteran planners from Olsen Incentives with more than 25 years of combined experience, conduct a site search and negotiate the contract. If the planner signs and the event is held, the property pays SmartRFP a 10 percent commission. There is no cost to the customer.

Marymor said Sanger and Koyama have "personal relationships with all the hotel chains' national sales representatives and a good idea of all the other properties out there. They're not just going to the big chains. It wouldn't necessarily be different than contacting Roger Helms at HelmsBriscoe or Brian Stevens at Conference Direct." But SmartRFP stores every meeting profile, making it unnecessary to ever reenter information like the company address in a personal RFP archive. For repeat meetings, "You can just grab an old RFP and make a few changes," Marymor noted.

Of the few dozen RFPs the new service has received so far, a high percentage have been for meetings with between 30 and 90 days of lead time, a niche upon which the company will focus. "We'd like the long-term meetings, because they tend to be larger--but since we're just starting out, we're happy to have any business," Marymor said.

Meanwhile, the existing Websites with the largest facility databases, PlanSoft (www.plansoft.com) and Event-Source (www.eventsource.com) also are seeking to expand their industry reach. PlanSoft last month announced that it will host a service on MPI's Website (www.mpiweb.org) under the name MPI TechEdge. MPI is a PlanSoft investor, as is GES Exposition Services, which also has a private-labeled version of the network on its site (www.gesexpo.com).

PlanSoft will mark suppliers in the database who are MPI members with a small MPI icon, and they will receive a 10 percent discount on events booked through PlanSoft or TechEdge.

The move gives PlanSoft access to all MPI supplier members to list on its database. It's unclear how many new suppliers will be added to the database, because there's overlap between the membership lists of PlanSoft and MPI, but PlanSoft executive vice president Ted Frank expects the number to be between 2,000 and 5,000.

Like PlanSoft, EventSource has increased its database by adding such non-hotel suppliers as destination management companies and cruise ships. EventSource also private labels its database on TSCentral (www.tscentral.com) and BizTravel.com (www.biztravel.com) Web sites. "In addition to providing the technology, these organizations have made commitments to us as strategic partners to provide services," said EventSource president Brian Langer. "It's a one-two punch."

For its part, EventSource sees its niche in providing comprehensive information not only about facilities, but also about the destinations in which they are located. Its "One Click Destinations" feature on 10 major cities, and smaller features on 1,000 other cities, provide information on transportation, restaurants and construction delays. The goal, Langer said, is to make EventSource the most comprehensive information tool for planners.

While further developments--notably the ability to book meetings at group rates directly over the Internet--are possible in the next few years, Langer said the most important benefits of meeting planning online already may be here."Despite my technological background, I'm still a big fan of bringing technology slowly to the market," he said. "What meeting planners really want is a service that facilitates rapid response. I think simply having availability, rates and standard terms and conditions in a centralized service is tremendously valuable. All the other things that technology can enable will be icing on the cake."

Langer promises three qualified responses to every RFP within 24 hours--though a "no rooms available" counts as a response. "Planners want to know quickly if facilities can at least negotiate with them, or if they're not interested," he said. "Everything else--online booking capability, conference management--will be important, but less significant."

Another online RFPservice, the New England-centric service Meetingpath, at www.meetingpath.com, (<I>Meetings Today,</I> Oct. 27, 1997) plans to bring its concept of keeping the CVB as an intermediary to other areas of the country.

"The CVBs today are the largest centralized lead source for group business in a destination," said George Novoson, president of MarketStream, Meetingpath's parent company. "They have a larger cooperative reach than any commercial company can, based on their magnitude and their dispersion, and they don't want to lose that franchise. If they lose it to commercial products like PlanSoft, they lose the loyalty of their membership and the justification of their fees. And they lose revenue that would go to other companies rather than to the local destination."

Also, Novoson said, CVBs would lose vital data, such as the timing and location of meetings in their destination. "That's information they pass back to their service members to be able to do business with planners," he said. "We're positioning Meetingpath as an alternative, CVB-centric product, where they own the data, the customers and the process."

Novoson said he plans this year to add "four or five cities," which he declined to name. "We'll sit down with the next set of cities that are interested and convince them that a number of CVBs working together is better than working apart," he said.

To be included on the Meetingpath site, hotels and CVBs pay a one-time fee to the Boston CVB, which originated the service in New England and handles its sales and marketing. There is no banner advertising on the site.