4) MEASUREMENT & ANALYSIS

Everyone appreciates the importance of measurement and most do. But it is usually a smaller number that analyses the information in a uniform manner and takes actions to improve….

With the vast quantities of information that is available in any organisation, it has become increasingly harder to look at the figures that matter. As a minimum, the measurement mechanisms to be in place should include :

Number of group leads received
Source of leads – internal v’s external, types of organisations, geography
Average sizes of group and core requirements
Types of events
Lead time from enquiry to actualisation
Group status and inventory management
Tracking lost business reasons
Analysing business refused
Spotting opportunities – annual events of companies etc

To sum up, improved group conversion depends on the people, the processes in place (and user buy-in), the optimal use of technology, a continuous cycle of measurement, analysis & adapting to changes in the market place (based on the measurement and analysis) along with ongoing sales management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

3 - CONVERTING GROUP ENQUIRIES

Here are some important aspects when it comes to converting those leads….

A clear definition of the various stages of the group booking process is critical to both managing the correct inventory as well as optimising your group sales.

Communication links between the source of booking and hotel will be of paramount importance.
Efficient processes and standardised ways of working are key to ensure smooth communication at all levels.

Flexibility and adaptability by the Conference & Banqueting teams at hotel in packaging services

A highly effective and fast follow-up process

Accessibility to key contacts at hotel for bookers

Understanding the needs of the client (including ROI)

Having looked at ROI for events to understand the customer perspective, it makes equal sense to focus on the four key areas that make a big impact for hotels. A comparison of actual conversion to the number of leads generated will usually give you an inkling of how much there is to do and improve….

These four factors seem rather obvious, but each of them have a direct impact on generating new leads as well as in conversion.

1. UNDERSTANDING GROUP CHANNELS BETTER
2. RESPONDING TO GROUP ENQUIRIES BETTER
3. CONVERTING GROUP ENQUIRIES BETTER & IMPROVING CONVERSION
4. IMPROVED MEASUREMENT & ANALYSIS

Having looked at understanding group channels better in the previous post, today, I am taking a look at responses to group enquiries.

2) RESPONDING TO GROUP ENQUIRIES BETTER
 
Speed – Different markets, different clients, different requirements but all require a speedy response. Do you always adhere to a standard response time? This will allow you to benchmark yourself, set the right expectations in the minds of the customers and if you have a particularly impressive response time use it as part of your marketing blurb.
 
Accuracy – In a highly demanding and fast moving market place, it is important to get the details right. Responding to an RFP accurately, saves time for both parties - there is nothing more annoying than to recieve a response with wrong dates as well as with poor spelling.
 
Presentation – A clear attractive format outlining the key details provides a visual impact as well as serves a functional purpose. Can your client get a quick overview of what you are proposing in a few seconds?
 
Consistency – A consistent format allows the end user to spot the information relevant to them

THE E-RFP
 
Currently about 15% of all meetings are sourced electronically, but trends indicate that this will increase substantially over the next years.
 
A large number of hotels whether part of a brand or otherwise have some sort of mechanism to address meeting requests electronically through their web site
 
However, both hoteliers and planners agree there are challenges due to inconsistent formats and its impersonal nature. It will be important to identify your E-RFP sources and have a clear process to address them effectively.

to be continued…

Influence from procurement departments particularly in big companies have increased over the last years – procurement being the more ‘in’ word for purchasing. While this brings about a lot of savings for the company, planning events becomes even more challenging as it allows less room for flexibility for the meeting planner. According to a C&IT survey in 2006, ‘’the power of purchasing officials clearly isn’t going to go away’’

So how does the procurement department of a big corporate company influence event organisation? The procurement department continually looks at ways of lowering costs and in many cases will advise Travel and Event Managers on which suppliers to use. Sometimes this leaves the event planner with limited choices and having to make some hard decisions.

But actual measurement of ROI remains a challenge with conflicting ideas on how to do it….and the frequency of such measurements vary as well.

So with ROI being a difficult one to measure and influence, I think that hoteliers will have to look closer at

1. UNDERSTANDING GROUP CHANNELS BETTER
2. RESPONDING TO GROUP ENQUIRIES BETTER
3. CONVERTING GROUP ENQUIRIES BETTER & IMPROVING CONVERSION
4. IMPROVED MEASUREMENT & ANALYSIS

and address each of these areas to improve their own ROI in sales efforts for the groups segment.

Here is how each of these areas can help you optimise your sales efforts.

1) UNDERSTANDING GROUP CHANNELS

• Identify the channels where group enquiries originate – Regional Sales Offices, Agencies direct, DMC’s, Corporate web site

• Use a targeted approach for different channels

• Understand their specific needs & decision making process

• Identify their preferred methods of working, payment methods, lead times etc

to be continued….

and how important is it for hoteliers to understand its impact?

• Companies, associations and other organisations spend an enormous amount of time and money on events. Some are aimed at customers and some at internal teams

• Most of the time they do not know if it is worth their money to spend these sums and measure what they get in return

So if a meeting planner is convinced that their ROI will be high in going ahead with an event, as a hotelier, you have a higher chance of converting that business. This in turn means that a hotel sales person will often need to find added value propositions to contribute to this process.

In the next few posts I will take a look at how far ROI measurement is being applied by the event industry.

As there is no consensus about a generic term for them (or rather have not heard of any), I have settled for SMD (sales, marketing and distribution) - a boring and highly predictable acronym which is not going to please anyone, but it will have to do for now.

SMD’s they are, as that is what they do - Sales, Marketing and Distribution. How much more they do, how well they do it, and what criteria they have differs from company to company.

To start with, here is a quick look at the Sales services that they offer

UTELL HOTELS & RESORTS - focuses on the TMC’s

• Comprehensive account management of top Travel Management Companies to ensure that member hotels benefit from the same business opportunities as the global hotel chains
• Broad network of regional and national sales to negotiate access to valuable regional and local sources of business

DESIGN - does not give enough detail, but mentions their presence at trade shows

• Membership Services
• Sales & Marketing Services
• Travel Trade Shows

SUPRANATIONAL - strong focus on TMC, corporate RFP’s through Lanyon, sales activities

• Global exposure of the Supranational Hotels portfolio to the travel community; travel agents and the corporate market.
• Centralised RFP submission
• Road shows and sales days

WORLD HOTELS - strong focus on corporate and group business

• Corporate Rate Programmes
• Worldwide Consortia Contracting
• 3 dedicated global group desks working for the meeting product

GREAT HOTELS OF THE WORLD - great focus on the corporate sector

• Consortia and direct-to-corporates GDS sales campaigns
• Meeting and incentive planner sales blitzes
• Individual sales blitzes for member properties

RELAIS & CHATEAUX - focuses on promoting properties at events and shows

• Promotion of properties and the brand on the international level, trade fairs and exhibitions, sales blitzes, showcases and large-scale public events.

LEADING HOTELS OF THE WORLD - powerful brand name, more focused on marketing

• sales and promotional activities

Independent hotels will benefit the most with an SMD company association, if they take a good look at the service offering and ensure that what the SMD company focuses on, is in the area of interest of the hotel.

Moving on from sales, I will take a look at the Marketing services on offer, but that will have to wait for tomorrow or the weekend.

DISCLAIMER: Information and comments provided here are to provide an overview. It is not meant to indicate the full service offering of these companies in any way.

An article published today on Ehotelier comments further on mobile technology in travel - the article is by Nick Gay from EyeforTravel. You can find it here

Hostec Europe is on in London this week - and their website said it was the ”premier technology event for the foodservice and hospitality sector”. So I ventured out to Excel exhibition centre with a colleague in the hope of discovering some new ideas and technology - particularly in the area of marketing with mobile technology.

It was quite disappointing! Yes, there were quite a few Point of Sale products (POS), some Property Management Systems (PMS) and some integrated PMS/Sales and catering products like Springer Miller, Evo-soft and of course Micros Fidelio. There were also some automated check-in kiosks from Ariane which seemed to be the most popular stand. On asking some of them about mobile technology, they were all quick to say that it was under development, but no details were forthcoming.

Further casual conversations also did not give the sense that there was new thinking in these areas - most products are still primarily built by technology professionals for the business and not through a real collaboration.

And just when we were resigning ourselves to no new discoveries, we spotted a small stand, where a gentleman sat at a small machine with a biometric scanner. Intrigued, we started talking and he invited us to try out CLOAKSCAN which called itself ‘the world’s first biometric cloakroom and lost property management system’. It aims to simplify one of the issues which plague both event organisers and venues - the issue of lost cloak room tickets. Instead of issuing a ticket you scan your fore-finger. This information is stored in the system for as long as your item is deposited. And this is backed up by camera technology which captures images as well!

Also worth a look is their Blue2, a bluetooth broadcasting system which allows venues and promoters to communicate to users via Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. More information at http://www.idscan.co.uk/

Some innovation at last …..but the search for more mobile technology for hotels continues!

While many hotels of this genre already exist, these will increase as travellers look for more unique destinations and reasons to visit.

Sun city hotel in South Africa, Hydropolis in Dubai, Ice hotel in Sweden are good examples. One of the latest to be in the news is ‘The Manned Cloud’ an airship hotel. This video of the hotel in the sky gives you a good idea about how comfortable the experience could be.

Virgin Galactic, ‘the worlds first spaceline’ will be taking space tourists away from earth for about 200,000 dollars some time this year. A space hotel cannot be too far behind….

This rapid growth in tourism and hotels have left a wide gap in skilled manpower that is needed to run the industry – this has resulted increased employee turnover thereby affecting standards of service directly. The future of the industry will remain with companies who are able to look at the welfare of the employees and who invest in training.

But with the explosive growth targeted by some companies, this seemsmore and more challenging. Shangri La is said to be targeting an additional 60 hotels in the coming two to three years. In India, a country one assumes due to its population, is rich in manpower is falling desperately short of skilled employees in the hospitality sector. For someone like me who had only the choice between the Taj group and the Oberoi’s to join after passing out of Hotel school in the early 90’s this seems like employment paradise. But at the same time it is posing some serious questions to employers.

So what is that magic formula which will help companies retain employees? Motivation has to be the key - a company with great leaders who can inspire and follow up on their promises to their teams. A company that takes its training and manpower development seriously. A company that rewards good performance handsomely and recognises it openly. A company that actually celebrates creativity and new ideas and not just pay lip service…