A new product from Starcite shows some promise in this area:

The StarCite Group Rate Advisor equips meeting planners and meeting suppliers with forward-looking hotel rate forecasts using meeting planning data from RFPs flowing through its meetings platform.

Using data collected from StarCite’s marketplace, StarCite can produce reports for any city or geographical region, that will provide sleeping room rate ranges and trends as far as twelve months in advance. The StarCite tool will also provide in-depth benchmarking information derived from years’ worth of historical booking data from the StarCite marketplace.

More at Starcite

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With a new stylish look and feel, Expedia Corporate Travel has been recently re-christened Egencia. And they will be doing everything they can to shake the dominance of Carlson Wagon Lit (CWT) and American Express (Amex) in this sector.

In a report in the Financial times, their chief executive Mr Khosrowshahi says that, now is as good a time to launch a revamped product as any inspite of the economic gloom worldwide. He believes that the the downturn plays into the hands of travel companies such as Expedia - “In times of transition, consumers look for more information and research more,” said. “They are going to look harder for bargains,” he added. More on that report from the Financial times

Egencia offers a number of tools including some popular products which have recently entered the Expedia fold including

• SeatGuru – A color-coded interactive airplane seating charts that outline the pros and cons of different seats for over 275 airplanes and more than 40 airlines. Provided by a community of frequent business travelers, the integrated intelligence tool takes convenience and comfort factors – such as legroom and ability to recline – into account. This informative SeatGuru content is integrated within the seat selection process for travelers and their bookers to help make more informed decisions for flights.
• TripAdvisor City Guides – Gives Egencia business travelers access to destination information that links to the traveler’s itinerary and provides pertinent destination information.

Some of these products bring some unique new benefits to corporate travellers and offer Expedia a fair chance to catch up with CWT and Amex in this highly lucrative segment. Click here to go to the Egencia website.

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In an ABTN interview with Rotana area vice president Dubai & Northern Territories, Omer Kaddouri mentions aggressive growth plans with ten hotels opening in 2008.

On the question of being able to maintain rates in the face of stiff competition, Kaddouri mentions that the group will be looking at almost a 20% increase for the following year !! With nearly 60 days a year when all of Dubai is sold out, no reason to question that I guess…..

Click here to read more

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According to a report in Business Travel Europe, the tool covering meetings planning, venue sourcing, attendee management and multi-spend reporting was launched at Imex Frankfurt this week. And it seems all about Return on Investment (ROI) which is now a frequent theme in the group business sector.

Christer Nordlund, HRG’s director events and meetings management, says “The ROI concept is being used to an increasing extent for this industry and the trend is clear: multinational companies are taking charge and directing processes towards increased cost and quality control.”

With procurement departments having more of a say, better sales management and tracking tools will have an increasing role to play in how meeting planners buy.

What does this mean for hotels? Ample demonstration of  value and values adds in proposals will make a bigger difference in the future.

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So will they wipe of the competition? According to the Office of Fair Trade in the UK which gave its approval for this venture to go ahead in March 08, it shouldn’t…

And who forms the competition? Comparable reports are produced by MKG, TRI, Lynn Jones Research, Best practice Forum and TravelCLICK.

We will have to wait and see who benefits in the long run - in the short term, hotel companies with a wide geographical spread should get improved intelligence from this venture.

Click here for previous related post

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Check out Swissotel’s new website which they launched last month - very smart and stylish with the only hitch being the loading times on some pages.

The site also includes a good online group RFP tool using Starcite at the back end.

Here is what they say about the RFP tool

”Unlike a conventional Request for Proposal (RFP), our Online RFP helps you build a complete meeting request by walking you through each step. You can fill in as much or as little information as you want. Your profile, as well as each RFP, is automatically saved and can be copied, forwarded or modified for future meetings, reducing data entry errors and saving time.This Online RFP is fully integrated into a Hotel & Facility Search Directory. Simply select the facilities you are considering, create the RFP and submit the request instantly to each of the hotels you have selected.”

More at http://swissotel.plansoft.com/global/rfp/index.asp

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Websites like Starcite will play an important role as a group channel for some time to come. And so will some of the software solutions that support them in improving sales management. 

StarCite is a leader in this market and offers on demand global meeting solutions that help hotels market, get and manage leads and book more revenue. StarCite’s Marketing Programs help suppliers gain a competitive edge showcasing their properties against thousands of others. Once you get the leads, StarCite’s innovative Response technologies help respond fast and track the progress of leads. www.starcite.com
 
Some other event websites include
www.worldmeetings.com
www.conventionplanit.com
www.sitevisit.com

When it comes to meetings and events, and supporting sales operations effeciency, here are two leading players - one is PASSKEY which is big in the US but not widely used in the European markets - they are a provider of web-based applications that automate the group housing management and reservation processing for the meetings and convention industry. www.passkey.com
 
And when it involves saving double entry for group booking and reservations teams, then a major player is MEETINGBROKER (part of Newmarket International). It is a web-based information service that distributes and manages leads from multiple business channels (example: starcite, company websites). MeetingBroker receives requests for proposals (RFPs) sent by meeting planners and provides a suite of online tools to more quickly assign, respond to, and analyze these leads. It allows the leads to be created directly in the sales and catering system used by hotels provided they are interfaced or if they use Delphi Sales & Catering.  
www.meetingbroker.com

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).

A recent survey conducted by HSSO in association with Nexus World Services found that over half of respondents do not use any technology at all to assist in planning trade shows, while 47% believe that their existing systems do not assist them in managing tradeshows and events.

The survey is part of a series designed to understand sales challenges better and to optimise sales management in the hotel industry. It focused on sales and tradeshow/event management and questioned over 30 top hotel groups about how they organised tradeshow participation and measured their performance. With a number of important industry events like Confex London, ITB Berlin, Imex Frankfurt and ATM Dubai happening in the early part of the year, the survey was carried out in February/March.

Survey participants were all active sales and operational persons at different levels of the hotel industry. More than half of respondents were directly involved in organising attendance at the ITB Berlin and a large percentage of their work involved co-ordinating with other team members within the company.

Some of the key aspects on tradeshow management that emerged include:

• 47% find it a time consuming exercise with 7% rating it as very difficult
• 53% say that it takes over 20 hours to organise a show like the ITB
• 57% do not use any technology to assist in planning such a show
• 47% of those surveyed believe that existing systems are not be able to assist in management of tradeshows and events
• All companies track effectiveness through a combination of the number of leads generated (80%), the number of visitors at the stand (66.67%), the number of new contacts made (66.67%) and actual conversion of leads into sales (73.33%).

With a minimum of twenty hours dedicated to organising a single tradeshow (albeit a large one like the ITB), the number of total hours sales teams spend organising shows and events are multiplied many times over. And with sales persons expected to sell more and administer less, optimal sales management processes combined with the right technology tools, will have a dramatic impact on the productivity of the sales force.

More details on the survey are available and free to download at
http://www.hospitalitysalessolutions.co.uk/MEDIA_ARTICLES.html

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)