Relationships Get the Deal Done

“Multiple-program deals and multiple-year deals are becoming more common,” says Isabel Mahon, director of global sales for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. “What is also more common is clients who have three or four divisions looking at the same hotel for those programs, and this can create great value for the clients. As the market has turned around in the last 12 months and rates have increased, multiple-program deals and multiple-year deals are ways that clients can still show savings to management. It also gives a base on the books for the owners of the properties. It is a win-win situation.”

It was a win-win for Brett Barrowman, vice president, conference and travel management, American Fidelity Group, Oklahoma City, Okla., when he booked a series of six incentive programs, ranging from 18 attendees to 450 attendees, into Fairmont properties between 2007 and 2010. The meetings will take place at hotels in Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Working with one brand, Barrowman says, gave the company “better rate considerations and the ability to show loyalty to a brand.” As well, he adds, “It was almost like one-stop shopping. We signed a single contract, and we had comfort with the service levels, even though we are in four countries. Once we finalized the properties, we were able to use a single source and let Isabel work on our behalf.”

Explains Mahon, “Brett signed with each hotel, but I was able to use our corporate contract so all the legal was the same, and we just negotiated the rates, dates, and concessions for each of the properties. I was the point person to collect all that information and negotiated with Brett.”

It sounds great, but such multi-meeting deals often work best after a relationship is established between planner and hotelier. “All the individuals I am working with on multiple-program or multiple-year deals have operated successful programs with us in the past,” Mahon says. “If I can make it easier for them to book Fairmont, they will reward us with additional business, and that is great for both the hotel and the company.” As well, the deal has to make sense for both sides — and for all the properties involved. “My hotel sales people are very supportive,” Mahon adds. “When a client has a corporate contract, they do not have to worry about the legalese, and these days that can be the part that holds up the signing. Each hotel is still giving me rates for the time-frame the client is looking at, but as they do not have to spend as much time negotiating one piece, that is worth something, and I can pass that on in the rate and concessions. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I need to do a little education on the hotel side, but that is part of my job in global sales. I need to make sure it is good business for the hotel, the company, and the client. Sometimes you still have to say no.”

Barrowman says he will look at similar package deals in the future, “as long as the brand is present in the destinations we are targeting. Budget has a lot to do with it also. Does the destination fit the budget and does the brand?” He also may repeat another type of package deal he has done in the past: booking back-to-back programs into a single property. In 2004, American Fidelity held three meetings back to back at the JW Marriott Ihilani on Oahu. “The programs are not huge on their own,” Barrowman says, “but combined, there were 1,200 total room nights.”

Heading Offshore: International Meetings Trend Upward

In 2006 as compared to 2005, the number of international meetings stayed the same or increased for 80 percent of survey respondents. More impressive, 94 percent of companies said the number of international meetings would stay the same or increase this year as compared to 2006.

For Paul Eder, vice president, meetings and incentives, Protective Life Insurance Co., in Birmingham, Ala., international incentive trips are a cornerstone of his company's reward and recognition strategy. “Our group of top producers is savvy and well-traveled,” Eder says. “They find international trips motivating and exciting. They work hard to go on these programs.” And Eder has led some incredible trips, including a program in Paris in the summer of 2001 that included a black-tie gala in the Palace of Versailles. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” says Eder, who points out that using unique venues for individual events is a great benefit of holding meetings overseas and is what really makes it special for the participant. “You can do things they can't do on their own.”

He acknowledges that international meetings present challenges, such as trying to predict exchange rates. “But I like the challenge. I think you raise your game to the level of the challenge,” he says. “But it's crucial to work with a good DMC!” In the past 10 years, Protective's top producers also have attended programs in Rome/Florence, London, Sydney, and Dublin. Barcelona is booked for July 2008. “International meetings have been very successful for us,” says Eder. “The challenges have been well worth our while.”

Third Parties Help Solo Planners

Just under half of the survey respondents said they use third-party meeting planners for some services, a figure that doesn't look to be changing (88 percent of respondents said their use of third parties would stay the same in the next 12 months).

Gay Grizzell, corporate meeting planner, Fort Dearborn Life Insurance, in Cleveland, is one who will continue to use the third party she's worked with for 14 years. “Some meetings I book direct,” she says. “Since I am the only meeting planner at my company, it depends on the size and complexity of the group. The third party provides assistance with site inspections, hotel rate negotiations, air bookings, airport meet-and-greet, and on-site logistics.”

Having used the same company for more than a decade, Grizzell has a high level of confidence in their performance and says that they have come to know her attendees as well as she does. However, she notes, when a third party does the negotiating, it can prevent the planner/supplier relationship from developing, and Grizzell sometimes finds herself pointing out that she is a repeat customer. “The one disadvantage is that in terms of relationship-building, when I go direct, many hotels are not aware that my company has been a past client or, in some cases, a current client. What the hotelier knows is that my third party is bringing them additional business. What they should also realize is that there is another entity that is driving the business to the third-party planner. If we are not placing business with them, they are not placing business with the hotels.”

Budget Builder: Creativity

Survey respondents were offered space to list their biggest current challenge and nearly all took the time to do so. The buzzword of the survey: creativity, in everything from planning the “wow” factor, to improving incentive events year over year, to making a bare-bones budget go farther.

Sometimes creativity means questioning things that are usually taken for granted. Centerpieces, for example. Dick Adler, sales promotion director, American Family Insurance Group, in Madison, Wis., surveyed his attendees recently, asking them to rate elements of the meeting that affected their experience. Centerpieces ranked dead last. At $100 a table, that's a significant line item and a chunk of cash that might work harder for you elsewhere.

“Now we use the votive candles on mirrors that every hotel has,” Adler says, “and we use that money for something else.” And Adler has long been on a bottled-water crusade: “Hotels charge you more for bottled water than for Coke!” he says. So, order up those pitchers of tap water for an easy budget boost.

Survey Methodology

Last August, e-mail with a link to the Web-based FICP Economic Impact Survey was sent to the most senior meeting planner on record at each FICP member company. A total of 216 e-mails were successfully delivered and 112 completed surveys were returned, for a response rate of 52 percent, a higher-than-average rate for professional associations. The Market Research & Statistics Group within SmithBucklin Corp. coordinated and tabulated the survey.