With Hotels Hurting, Meetings Matter

Meetings are increasingly important to hotels' bottom lines. So reported keynote speaker Bjorn Hanson, a noted lodging analyst with PricewaterhouseCoopers, at the Professional Convention Management Association annual meeting in early January. Hanson said group business accounted for 27 percent of profits at full-service hotels in 2002 — up from 20 percent in 2000. In fact, in many major cities last year, the group rate was higher than transient rates. (Hanson's full report is available at<