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Business Travel

Great Rates

To save money on your next big meeting,
learn a little about how hotels look at you


Also: Should you consider a spa?
Tips on saving money on room rates


By Laura Williams-Tracy

Last year the boss handed you one of the most difficult assignments you’ve ever had — making all the arrangements for the big company meeting. You dialed every hotel in town until you found one that could guarantee guest rooms for the employees who flew in for the event, enough meeting space for the business sessions, complete catering services plus a ballroom for the gala dinner.

This year he wants you to pull off the same miracle — on a smaller budget.

To have a decent chance of striking the best deal while also making sure your goals for the meeting are met, you need some knowledge about how the lodging industry works and a little flexibility in structuring the details of your event. For starters, you need more than just two open dates on the CEO’s calendar, a rough idea of how many meals the group will eat and a ballpark number of meeting rooms needed.

That’s because a resort or hotel will calculate all sorts of factors, from food and beverage purchases to how many rounds of golf the group will play, before giving you its best rate. Without that information, it usually will quote you a rate high enough to cover all the unknowns.

“The person handling the meeting planning should have some negotiating power,” says Jerry Lotich, director of sales and marketing at Grandover Resort in Greensboro. Here’s what he means:

A company planning an outing usually is juggling two factors — the preferred dates for the meeting and the available budget. If price is the most important factor, Lotich says, the company must be flexible on dates in order to strike the best deal.

“Even in a world class resort like Grandover, we say there is a date for every rate,” Lotich quips.

In the Triad, for example, the third week of October is traditionally the week of the fall furniture market. It’s booked on that date for the next 20 years, Lotich says. If your company wants to book a hotel for a meeting in the Triad in late October, you can bet you’ll pay a premium for rooms anywhere in the region, he says.

Conversely, if the meeting can be held during a slower time of the year for the hotel properties in your area, you’re bound to find more attractive rates.

December and January and June, July and August historically are the slowest times of the year for corporate meetings. That’s because most people are either celebrating the holidays or on summer vacations. If you can organize your meeting then, you will save money.

A three-night stay is usually an optimum length for most meetings, and there are room night patterns that can affect price, says Mike Martino, general manager of the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Conference Center in Durham. Most meetings book from Sunday to Wednesday or Wednesday to Sunday. If your meeting tries to straddle that pattern, expect to pay higher rates and have a harder time getting guarantees on the number of rooms you need.

Typically, the early part of the week is when most business travel occurs, Martino adds. So Thursday and Friday night stays usually are less expensive, and Saturday and Sunday rates are even lower.

Most businesses plan their off-site meetings about 60 days in advance. If you really want to save money, you might be able to negotiate better rates if you commit further in advance or on a shorter notice, says Martino. Booking several months in advance can prompt a price break, especially if you book several meetings over several years, making the property inclined to give you a volume discount. Scheduling a meeting on short notice can bring a price break if a hotel isn’t hosting other events then and is otherwise looking at empty rooms those nights. But remember, Martino says, by waiting until the last minute companies run the risk of not finding adequate accommodations.

Hotels with enough capacity prefer hosting large groups, property managers say, but they stress that the optimum number of guests in a corporate party is different for each hotel.

“We never ever look at a group and say they are too small or too big for us,” says Moe Milani, executive vice president of the Koury Corp.’s Hospitality Division, which operates Grandover Resort, the Sheraton/Koury Convention Center and Parklane Hotel, all in Greensboro. “Numerous times we’ve had 40 rooms sold and someone wants the whole hotel. We say no, you are just as important to us as the guy bringing 4,000 people.”

While a large group can work in a company’s favor when negotiating rates, the hotel is more interested in how many services the group will be buying than in the number of guest rooms.

If the company is providing meals for attendees, remember that the more banquets, cocktail hours, continental breakfasts and other foods an organization commits to buying from the hotel, the lower your individual costs for each event will be. It may even pull down the overall tab because the hotel will be able to give you a better room rate if it is able to spread its profit margin over other operational areas.

“It’s a package that you are working to,” says the Sheraton Imperial’s Martino. “As you add to the value of what you are purchasing, it gives greater flexibility in guest room rates.”

Remember, too, that the hotel will be calculating its costs for hosting your group, says Jim Hobbs, president of the North Carolina Hotel & Motel Association, based in Raleigh.

“Every meeting should have a defined strategic purpose and a goal that needs to be accomplished,” says Hobbs. That means knowing details about what’s needed to pull off those goals. For example, will the group require one large meeting room or smaller rooms for breakout meetings? Will everyone need a table to write at or just chairs?

When quoting you a room rate, the hotel manager will consider all of these factors and will calculate how much hotel staff labor it will cost to accommodate your needs. The hotel will also look at whether your group is paying for enough guest rooms to cover the cost of serving your group in the meeting space.

Along the same line, the hotel or resort also will consider whether members of the group will be playing golf or using the spa, if that amenity is available. All of those purchases add to your group’s attractiveness to a resort property.

Keep in mind also that instead of negotiating lower room rates, a meeting planner can also negotiate for additional services, such as turndown service at night or upgraded rooms to junior suites for the bosses, says Grandover’s Lotich. Those special touches can improve the overall meeting experience.

Managing the many details of planning a corporate meeting can become dizzying for some, and many properties are moving to package deals that take some of the guess work out of the process.

Ballantyne Resort in Charlotte recently began offering a single rate package deal for its newly opened 35-guest-room lodge. For one fee, companies gain access to 3,000 square feet of meeting space, all of the guest rooms, recreational space, breakfast and audiovisual equipment necessary for meeting presentations.

“It’s quite a retreat that provides exclusivity for a corporate retreat,” says Wayne Shusko, managing director of Bissell Hotels, which operates Ballantyne Resort as well as Charlotte’s well known The Park Hotel.

To meet the different price points of the corporate meeting market, Bissell Hotels also owns and operates two less expensive hotels, Staybridge Suites at Ballantyne and Courtyard by Marriott at Ballantyne. Both hotels are located just across the street from the Ballantyne Resort and offer corporate guests a less expensive option for guest rooms while allowing them full access to Ballantyne Resort’s meeting space and amenities.

A valuable starting point for any company planning a corporate outing is to contact the convention and visitors bureau located in the areas where they want to hold the meeting, says Debbie Vargas, president of the North Carolina Association of Convention and Visitor Bureaus and executive director of the Greenville-Pitt County CVB.

Those organizations often will take on the job of collecting proposals from area hotels and resorts to help a company secure competitive pricing. CVBs also are a wealth of information about festival and other events happening in the area — which can be worthwhile if spouses are attending — as well as services such as off-site restaurants or group transportation providers.

And because convention and visitor bureaus are typically funded by a community’s hotel occupancy tax, the meeting coordination service is almost always free.

With the slower summer meeting season approaching and the lingering effects of the slowed economy and September terrorist attacks on the travel industry, hotel and resort managers say it’s a good time to start planning a corporate meeting.

Many large trade association meetings were cancelled this year nationally and hotels could be scurrying to fill space. Also, the transient corporate market of single business travelers is not what it was, and hotels are looking to fill those gaps.

“If a company is budget conscious, they should put that on the table,” says Martino. “We can make recommendations and help them plan their entire meeting.”

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