More than 250,000 new hotel rooms will come on line in the U.S. in the next 12 to 18 months — and experts say that could spell good news for planners of small meetings.

“Certainly, there has been an increased interest in embracing small meetings over the last year,” says Greg Malark, chief operating officer at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based site-selection company HelmsBriscoe, which does about $100 million a year in business for groups of up to 30 room nights. While he sees this trend across the board, it has intensified in the South, Southwest, and Midwest.

Nowhere is it more evident than in Las Vegas, where 30,000 rooms will come on line in the next few years. According to an article in the Las Vegas Sun, big properties in the convention mecca are starting to feel the pinch of new product and, as a result, are working harder at pleasing the little guy.

Beyond Vegas

With around 3,500 new hotel rooms expected in the next 18 months, including the 1,100-room Grand Hyatt San Antonio Convention Center Hotel, San Antonio hoteliers are also waking up to the importance of small meetings.

“Particularly within the past 90 days, we're seeing a lot more activity — hotels sharpening their pencils and more aggressively pursuing [small] meetings,” says Steve Clanton, vice president of sales at the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau. In the past, the bureau might get four or five responses to an RFP for a small meeting; now they might get 25.

The bureau has also shifted its focus to cater more to small meetings. “We've totally realigned our staff,” Clanton says. The San Antonio CVB has five people handling nothing but meetings of 200 rooms or less; four more people do meetings that don't require the convention center. Previously the bureau had two salespeople focused on small meetings.

While the Orlando CVB has always had a focus on small meetings, with more than 3,000 new rooms opening in the next several years, not to mention a number of new properties that have opened recently, hotels may be taking a bit more notice.

“I have seen better response and follow-up from hotels, especially from some of the large hotel chains that have specific managers working on [the small meetings] market,” says Lisa Crouse of independent planning firm Fagan & Crouse. For a recent small meeting where she was considering Atlanta and Orlando, she able to reach several hotels quickly by phone.

Dee Collier, who plans 40 to 50 small meetings a year as event coordinator for Heartland Dental Care in Effingham, Il., has also noticed that hotels — especially in Vegas and Orlando — are returning her calls faster, even checking in with her when they don't hear back. She has also seen more experienced people being assigned to small meetings. “The individuals I have been assigned to have been more knowledgeable about the workings of small meetings and have anticipated our needs,” she says.