Contract Time Crunch

Once the terms are hammered out, the stressful and time-consuming contract approval procedure begins for planners.

“It is a huge process for us just to get the contract approved and back to [the hotel],” said Allergan's Henry. “A third party can do the negotiations on my behalf, but once the contract is back on my desk, I have to review it and make sure it goes through legal. Then my boss has to initial it, and ultimately our vice president has to sign it.”

Some pharma planners worry that the hotel will not hold the rooms during the lengthy corporate approval process. “This is where relationships and credibility are key,” said Hills. “The partnership between the planner and the supplier is critical. Keep your hotel sales rep in the loop [as to where the contract is in the approval process] so they can communicate it back to their managers.”

Another time-saving option: “Send the addendum to the national sales office during the sourcing stage [when you send out the RFP],” suggested panelist Lesly Rehaut, CMP, CMM, global director of group sales North America, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, based in Baltimore. Having the hotel review the addendum early on will save you much more time, she says.

More Meetings = More Leverage

Looking for other ways to save time, one attendee asked: “Will signing a multi-meeting contract with a hotel chain help us leverage better deals and speed up the contract approval process?”

“We're a smaller chain,” said Millennium's Rehaut. “Although we have preferred vendor status with some of the major corporations, we work on an independent basis when it comes to multi-meeting contracts. We can't put [multiple meetings] out as one contract, but we can work with you on concessions and on the addendums to create a seamless process.”

Hills added that the process is somewhat different from the perspective of a larger chain like Hilton. “What we have found is that, in the initial [negotiation] stage, we need to have a sense from the meeting planner that you can commit to a set of multiple programs simultaneously.”

In turn, added Hills, “we need to give you a compelling reason to select our chain for multiple programs. We usually can do this through concessions, but we need to know which concessions are critical to you from the beginning. If we measure the dollar value of these, it helps give you a compelling reason [to choose us] when you go to your stakeholder.”

Another approach, added Hills, is booking multiple events at a single property. “The hotel offers incentives to deliver business during certain periods throughout the year, and these benefits go up as room nights go up. If you know in advance that you are going to do five programs in a single city throughout the year, putting all five in a single RFP can help you negotiate increased benefits.”

Throughout the session, planners emphasized the importance of relationships, particularly the relationships they have with hotels' national salespeople, when negotiating contracts. As the discussion came to a close, Benaroche Johnson asked the planners on the panel to comment further on what constitutes a productive relationship between planner and hotelier.

“For me it is knowing that you understand the needs of my company and knowing that you are committed to us,” said Tolvé. “Understanding the client's needs and priorities is key when negotiating the contract.”

Getting in the Door

How can suppliers, particularly new hotel salespeople, develop relationships with pharmaceutical and medical device planners? That was one of the questions an attendee asked panelists during a session on hotel contracting at the West Coast Medical Device and Bio/Pharmaceutical Meeting Planners Forum in Costa Mesa, Calif., last December.

“I'm a big advocate of working through national sales organizations,” said speaker Tom Tolvé, CMP, manager, meeting operations at Novo Nordisk, Princeton, N.J. “Meeting planners do not want to be called 100 times a day.”

“We're very strict about who we let in the door,” agreed panelist Marybeth Roberts, CMP, senior manager, meetings and trade shows at Amgen, Thousand Oaks, Calif. “We don't allow individual hotels to come in and meet with us unless we know we will be booking business with them. What we will do is ask our NSOs to get a group of hotels together and set up a time for us to meet with them. This is usually done on our lunch hour, and we won't do more than two of these meetings a month so that our staff is not constantly going to hotel road shows.”

“I'm easier,” said speaker Brian Henry, senior meeting planner, Allergan, Irvine, Calif. “I'm happy to meet with you, but don't come in and try to sell me your new spa and golf course because I can't use it [due to compliance issues]. Make sure you've done your research and know [industry terminology like] what an advisory board panel is and what an investigator meeting is. Then, if I am available, I will see you.”

To Be Continued

Planners and hoteliers will have more opportunities to discuss hotel contract negotiation issues at the Fourth Annual Pharmaceutical Meeting Planners Forum, scheduled for March 17 to 19 in Baltimore. Watch for conference coverage in the June issue of Medical Meetings. For more information, visit www.pharmameetingplanners.com.