Internet Booking Challenge Here to Stay

Booking hotel rooms via third-party Internet sites, at better rates and outside a group's contracted room block, was—what a surprise—the hot topic at last week's Professional Convention Management Association convention in Anaheim. Many association meeting planners, who two to five years ago contracted large room blocks based on meeting history and a booming economy, are not getting credit for those rooms now that the meetings are taking place (even though most planners say registration is up