 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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