July 2004 Corporate Meetings Make It  Look Easy Staging a successful event requires an insider's insights  into the hotel business By Laura Willliams-Tracy Learn more: Spas make a meeting special Keep your audience in mind	Ginny Fountain wasn't always an expert meeting planner. There was the time she booked a banquet at a hotel that was short-staffed. To her embarrassment, her boss got up halfway through the event and started clearing away dishes.
For companies that plan their own meetings, often without the help of a professional meeting planner, what are the tricks of the trade? We asked some NCCBI members to share their secrets for avoiding paying the rack rate and coming away from a corporate meeting with a renewed mission.

Planning up to 40 meetings and conferences a year for the N.C. Electric Membership Corp. — some with as many as 500 attendees — has made Ginny Fountain an expert in the field. But it wasn’t so easy in her early days as manager of corporate and event planning for the nation’s second largest power generation and transmission cooperative.

There was the time she booked a banquet at a hotel that was short-staffed. To her embarrassment, her boss got up halfway through the event and started clearing away dishes.

Another time she signed a contract a year-and-a-half in advance for a conference only to have the property sell to new ownership and schedule construction on a major renovation right at the time of her scheduled event.

Still new in her role, Fountain had not thought to include a provision in the contract to allow her to escape the obligation in such circumstances. After six months of negotiations, she was able to void the contract. “With contracts at first, I didn’t know what was necessary, and I assumed everything had to be,” says Fountain.

Those experiences taught her that a good meeting planner can make the job look easy. “Everybody thinks you’re a party planner,” she quips. It’s only when some minor aspect of the meeting goes terribly wrong do others begin to appreciate the mountain of details that must be negotiated and massaged to make a planned meeting a success.

In time, Fountain learned to negotiate from a position of power. Now she can easily make her way through a BEO (Banquet Event Order), knows what clauses to insert into contracts and figures out where to save money on events.

She recently earned her designation as a certified meeting planner after passing a rigorous exam that tests such finer points as how many feet the first row of chairs should be from a presentation screen.

What Fountain and other meeting planners have learned along the way is that when planning a corporate retreat or conference, there’s always room for negotiation. But the best deals are struck when the arrangement benefits everyone. “You can be creative in lots of ways as long as it’s win-win,” says Fountain.

So for companies that plan their own meetings, often without the help of a professional meeting planner, what are the tricks of the trade? We asked some NCCBI members to share their secrets for avoiding paying the rack rate and coming away from a corporate meeting with a renewed mission.


Avoid the Busy Season

Since high demand creates high prices, the first bit of research into a planned corporate outing is to find out when certain hotels or resorts are busiest. A company likely won’t find a deal during high season but will be welcomed by the property with plenty of incentives during slower times.

“Resorts tend to be busier on the weekends. Corporate-focused hotels are busier during the week,” says John Rickards, director of sales for the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort in Wrightsville Beach.

So when you choose the property, consider when is their busiest time and opt for the quieter period. A Sunday through Wednesday stay at a resort will get you a better rate.       

Then think about seasons. Most properties have a high season, a shoulder season or moderately busy time, and low season. For most all beach properties and most mountain properties, the low season is November through February. Families are busy with school and the holiday season, and many companies are finishing up year-end activities and don’t tend to get away to meetings. If it works for your business, consider a winter conference. An early-year conference can work well for businesses looking to kick off a new marketing plan or other change with everyone on the same page.

“There is no one who doesn’t want business between Thanksgiving and New Year’s,” says Rickards. “That’s your best chance.”

No matter the time of year the group travels, consider double checking with the local chamber of commerce or tourism bureau to make sure a major university in the area isn’t holding graduation the same time you plan to visit or a major festival isn’t under way. Hotels will be charging premium rates when they are in high demand.

Most novice or occasional meeting planners expect to catch a break on the rate they are paying for sleeping rooms. But a basic fact of the lodging industry is that guest rooms are where the property makes most of its money — almost two times as much as the food and beverage service.

Hotels aren’t always likely to negotiate on room rates. But you can negotiate things such as attrition fees, says Pola Laughlin, director of sales for the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. If a group promises to take 100 rooms, most hotels expect that only 90 rooms will be used, allowing the guests to fall short by 10 percent. But fall any shorter and the corporate guest will end up paying for unused rooms, says Laughlin.

Instead of trying to work down the room rate, Laughlin suggests that group guests can negotiate possibly an 85 percent attrition fee, which will save money on unused rooms.

Jeff Metcalf, assistant general manager of The Sanderling Inn at the North Carolina coast in Duck, says just knowing the number of attendees and sticking to that number can save companies from unnecessary charges for unused rooms. “It pays to know more how many are coming than to negotiate $10 off the room rate,” says Metcalf, otherwise the company is charged. “We don’t make friends that way and making friends is what we’re in business to do.”

You might also consider negotiating for an extension on the cut-off date for committing to rooms, says Beverly Creger, corporate meeting planner for Aladdin Travel in Winston-Salem.

Instead of being required to give a final number three weeks out from the event, negotiate to give the number two weeks in advance. “The extra time gives your attendees more flexibility to reply on their attendance and will likely make your final number more accurate,” she says.

Also consider industry-standard room patterns and stay within them. Most hotels and meeting properties expect meetings to run from Sunday to Wednesday or from Wednesday to Saturday. Staying within those patterns allows the hotel to maximize the use of its space.

Crossing over, such as a meeting that runs Tuesday to Thursday, will interfere with the pattern and likely leave the hotel with empty rooms on Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday and they’ll charge you a room rate that recoups some of those losses. “If you try to cross over those days you will pay a premium for it because the hotel needs to be full,” says Creger.


Keep Functions Onsite

So if you haven’t been able to strike a great deal on the room rate, how can you contain costs during your corporate meeting?

You’ve got people to feed and entertain. The property is looking to spread its profit margin over as many operational areas as possible. Meeting planners say you will likely get an overall good rate if instead of going off site to a nearby restaurant for dinner, you consider having the hotel’s catering department handle the event.

Also consider combining meals with other functions. Before lunch, schedule a 20-minute break while the meeting room is readied for lunch. Reducing the number of rooms that must be prepped for the group will reduce the hotel’s overhead and in turn, result in a cost savings for the group, says Sunspree’s Rickards.

Rental on meeting space is one of the best places to save money during a corporate retreat or conference. Most hotels have standard fees for setting up the meeting space, which includes labor cost for setting up tables and tablecloths, AV equipment and water pitchers. While you aren’t likely to get out of being charged the room set-up fee, you might be able to avoid paying for daily meeting room rental.

For many hotels, if your group is taking a significant number of guest rooms you can get the meeting space rental waived, which can result in a savings of up to $200 per day.

The more detailed the meeting agenda, the better able the meeting planner will be able to contain costs during an event, says Metcalf of The Sanderling.

It helps to know if the meeting will happen in one large room or flow into several break out rooms during the course of the day. If the meeting planner doesn’t have this information, the property will quote a rate high enough to cover all of the unknowns.

If, on the other hand, the meeting will break at midday one day, then afternoon coffee breaks and other ancillary charges can be erased from the overall bill. “Whatever the group does affects the cost of the meeting,” says Metcalf.

No matter the location, part of any successful meeting, especially those that last longer than a day, is the recreation that comes from being in a new place.

Louise McColl, president of McColl and Associates, a meeting planning and public relations firm in Wilmington, says many properties will handle the tasks of setting up golf outings, boat rides or other attractions for the group. They often have ongoing relationships with outside attractions and can get favorable rates.

Or if the place you are going is so well-known for its recreational pastimes that you’d hardly miss a chance to partake, consider including golf or spa visits in with an overall meeting package rate.

“We try to understand what the meeting is all about, whether it’s to build relationships or wow customers. We can help tailor it to those needs,” says Kimberly Bryan, director of national accounts for Pinehurst Resort.

Special meeting packages at Pinehurst Resort can include 18 holes on course No. 2, even in the weeks leading up to the 2005 U.S. Open when the greatest names in golf will play the revered Donald Ross-designed masterpiece. Spring and fall are the high season for golf at Pinehurst Resort. The evergreen season, from November to March is the best time to get a deal.


Decide What’s Most Important

In the end, planning a meeting takes a fair amount of strategy. “In reality is comes down to what’s most important — the rate, the date or the space?” says Susan Merrill, executive meeting manager for Pinehurst Resort. If a company picks the one that’s most important and is flexible on the other two, just about any property can meet your needs.

It’s also smart to play your budget strategically. Does that mean revealing the budget to a hotel or resort? No, according to Creger of Aladdin Travel, who says she never reveals the entire budget. “I wouldn’t lay all of my cards out because they are going to spend every bit of your money,” says Creger. “They’ll have shrimp to eat instead of mini quiches.”

But it can be wise to tell a property what your budget is for an overnight room and ask them to come in at that number in order for the group to purchase food and beverage at the hotel. Such negotiating can sometimes lead to additional guest amenities, such as free parking.

If all of the details get to be too much, companies might consider hiring a professional meeting planner to make their way through the assortment of contracts and small details.

An off-site meeting planner who arranges the event will charge about 4 to 5 percent of the overall meeting cost for her services. One who come to the event and manages the activities will likely charge 10 or 11 percent. “For our clients,” says Creger, “we often save them enough money that the fee never made a difference.”




Spas Make a Meeting Special
By mid-afternoon, most meeting attendees have begun to find their chair uncomfortable, the speaker a bit monotone, and a quiet nap more appealing than another breakout session.

But instead of the expected soft drink and cookie break, a health and fitness expert from the hotel’s spa arrives ready to lead the group in an energizing yoga stretch.

Business casual attire suddenly doubles as exercise wear as meeting attendees pull themselves into the downward dog stretch for a healthy energy boost.

“When you’ve been meeting all day and then there’s an energy stretch at 2:30, it gets the meeting going for the rest of the day,” says Susan Merrill, executive meeting manager for Pinehurst Resort.

Pinehurst Resort is one of several world-class resorts with meeting facilities in North Carolina that have opened spas within the last few years. Asheville’s Grove Park Inn, Grandover Resort in Greensboro and Ballantyne Resort in Charlotte all have opened spas.

Today, spas are increasingly being used as cross-marketing tools for meetings business. A luxurious spa draws corporate clients for meetings business, and meetings bring new clients to the spa.

“Of every group that comes in, on average, at least a third of the group has a spa treatment,” says Kimberly Bryan, national account manager for Pinehurst Resort.

Pinehurst’s spa includes an indoor lap pool and cascading whirlpool, as well as separate steam, sauna and whirlpool areas for men and women. The spa has six massage suites for couples and 28 treatment rooms for an array of pampering.

But this newest trend brings those relaxing indulgences out of the spa and into the meeting room. Some even offer chair massages during registration.

“People are feeling time-poor,” says Jeff Metcalf, assistant general manager of The Sanderling Inn in Duck, N.C. The Outer Banks resort just reopened its spa having doubled its size to include a couples spa suite with private waiting area, massage room and wet room for mud treatments and wraps — and a private balcony overlooking the coastline. “Groups come in for business but because we’re here at the beach people also want some R and R,” says Metcalf.

And it isn’t just women who are enjoying the pampering. According to the International Spa Association, more than 44.9 million people visited a spa from June 2002 to June 2003, and 29 percent of them were men, an increase of 5 percent from the previous year.

To make spas appealing to male business travelers, many properties are tailoring their offerings to attract men. Pinehurst Resort’s spa, for example, offers a golfer’s massage that targets the muscles used during the sport. That’s smart since the ISPA’s study showed that of men going to spas, 62 percent go for a massage. “It’s not all flowers and fluff,” says Bryan.

To increase traffic to the spa, Pinehurst Resort offers as part of its meeting package a $25 gift card to be used by guests anywhere on the property. Having the gift card takes away the hesitation to make a purchase, and while some spend it at the golf pro shop, many choose to use it for a trip to the spa.

Combining the healthy lifestyle promoted at the spa with business meetings helps to create an overall sense that the business trip was also a venture into a new way of looking at things, says Metcalf.

And meeting attendees who are faced with the prospect of trying their first yoga moves in front of their work peers react in different ways, though Metcalf says anyone of any size or flexibility can do the stretches that are offered. “It creates energy and introduces people to the idea of a healthy lifestyle,” says Metcalf. “Many of them realize, ‘Hey, I could do this’.” — Laura Williams-Tracy



Keep Your Audience in Mind

Pulling off a successful corporate meeting is a significant investment of money. Shouldn’t it also be a worthwhile investment of time?

In the sea of tactical details necessary in planning a meeting, companies shouldn’t lose sight of the real reason behind the meeting, says Noel McLaughlin, a public relations veteran who spent 20 years with First Citizens Bank before starting her Raleigh-based firm, Noel McLaughlin Public Relations, this summer.

“Your meeting is an important communications channel,” and it should be treated as such, says McLaughlin, whose firm provides event counsel to companies that are looking to ensure their message is communicated during meetings. “A meeting needs to justify its reason to be.”

So while management might be tempted to turn over the details of the meeting agenda to administrative staff, McLaughlin warns that meetings that lack the involvement of key leaders can fail to convey the message they were intended to present.

That means thinking strategically about such questions as: Is the purpose of the meeting to inform or to interact? Where does the meeting fit into the marketing strategy? Are the right people been invited to participate?

Once guests arrive at the meeting site, the itinerary shouldn’t go on autopilot, McLaughlin says, but should be monitored for what’s working and what’s not. Perhaps a speaker should be moved up on the agenda to keep the discussion moving in the right direction.

Meeting attendees have high expectations for results, McLaughlin says, so meeting organizers need to strive for fewer flashy Powerpoint presentations and information dumps and more true interaction among participants.

“People are busy, and you need to position a meeting as something that does something valuable for the audience,” says McLaughlin.

The end of a meeting is a critical time for a company to collect important data about the meeting that can be used for planning future meetings.

Simple questions, such as what could be done better, what did you like and what three bits of information you got from the meeting can tell whether the message was on target. Collecting that information is as easy as developing a simple questionnaire.

“You may think you got your main points across but the audience may tell you different,” says McLaughlin.

 — Laura Williams-Tracy


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