Marketing Review - Spring 2008 - (Page 60)

we’re doing business with machines and information, versus people, today. And what that has done is depersonalize the sales process.” Many meeting planners agree with that assessment. “What I have seen, not only personally but I have also heard it from my peers, is that the relationships are changing,” says Don Cantrell, chairman of the board of the South Carolina Association for Educational Technology. “They are becoming more impersonal. So, there is more of a challenge in building up a rapport and a relationship that will lead to loyalty.” Like Schmidt, Cantrell cites an everincreasing dependence on technology as a root cause of a worsening problem. “And this is a technologist saying that, so I can be totally objective,” he says. “Technology is being used as a major—and sometimes the only—communication tool between the seller and buyer. So, a lot of things are breaking down in that communication.” Voss Graham, CEO of InnerActive Consulting Group, a Cordova, Tennessee company that has counseled clients on business relationships for 20 years, said, “What I see is that the hotel industry, which after 9/11 was begging people to have meetings and was personable and friendly, cutting deals and working hard to satisfy their customers so they would keep coming back, has lost that,” he says. “They’re losing touch with their customers.” That dynamic, in turn, is further complicated by a growing shortage of what both sides once valued most. “Neither buyers nor sellers have the time that we used to,” says Bonnie Boyd, CMP, president of Bonnie Boyd & Co., a top New Orleans destination management company. “Of course, a lot of that has to do with the fact that we are expected to manage more because we’re able to manage more in the age of the Internet.” Rhoda Weiss, chairperson and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, has taught a meeting-and-event-planning course at UCLA Extension for the past 23 years. From her direct observation of both sellers and buyers, she tosses the final ingredient for a dangerous stew into the cauldron of circumstances. “Both sides think they are on a pedestal,” she says. “Both sides think they’re being blindly admired by a grateful public.” There is, of course, a peculiar irony in that, if it’s widely true, since both sides of 60 THE PLANNER PERSPECTIVE BOB GUERRIERO is founder and president of The Journeymasters, a respected incentive travel house that will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. He has little sympathy for planners who feel victimized in a seller’s market—and has a clear message for sellers. “As customers, we always have the upper hand,” says Guerriero, whose blue-chip clients include GE, Kyocera Mita and Intuit. “The simple reason is, I will not abrogate my right as a buyer.” Explanation: He will walk away, and explain to his clients that the hotel they thought they wanted is charging more than they want to pay. Surprisingly, Guerriero sees no difference between today’s market and when he started four decades ago. “It has always been cyclical. It’s the law of supply and demand. It’s when they raise their prices thirty per cent from one year to the next that I have a problem. But you just pick another destination and hotel.” DON CANTRELL, chairman of the board of the South Carolina Association for Educational Technology, shares Guerriero’s philosophy for effective selfdefense. For the past five years, when planning his annual conference for 1,200 attendees, he has been a tough negotiator with the Myrtle Beach Convention Center and his headquarters hotel, the Sheraton Myrtle Beach Convention Center Hotel. “They learned that their attempts to put mandates on me did not sit well,” Cantrell says. “Now, every year, they know they are subject to losing the business.” Using the leverage of a major piece of business in shoulder season, Cantrell has been able to negotiate free parking and Internet services from the Sheraton for the past several years. Like Guerriero, Cantrell rejects the “victimhood” stance that many planners are assuming in today’s market. “So many times, “ he says, “meeting planners forget that they are the customer. And the customer, if he or she is a smart customer, is the driving force behind every business transaction, not just in the meetings business.” BIRGESS MOORE, CMP, is principal of four-year-old B Line Events, a San Francisco meeting planning company whose clients include Google, Fairchild Semiconductor and T-Mobile. While she feels she has built excellent relationships with national hotel sales organizations, she has a couple of complaints. “Hotels are not always recognizing how much business any one particular third party is bringing them,” she says of the current climate. “In the past, we have gotten more recognition for bringing in more business through a single funnel. But over the past two years, it just feels like they’re not focusing on where the consistent business is coming from, and who they need to pay attention to. It seems like that has gone by the wayside.” Moore says she has also seen a recent decline in the general standard of service. “We would like quicker answers,” she says, and “more follow-up.” the meeting equation are facing some daunting new arithmetic. Hotels are willingly pushing away some old clients based on new calculations of profitability in the era of revenue management. Meanwhile, meeting planners are making often unre- alistic demands on hotels, based on the time-honored metric of room nights. However, PKF Hospitality Research noted in a November report, hotels are shifting from the sale of room nights to the aggressive capture of more bottom-line dollars. HSMAI MARKETING REVIEW • SPRING 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Marketing Review - Spring 2008

HSMAI Marketing Review - Spring 2008 Contents COLUMN: The Online Marketer COLUMN: Success Stories COLUMN: Guest Column Ten Trends Now Shaping the Future of Hospitality Turning the 2008 Consumer Tax Rebates into Hospitality and Travel Sales 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality and Travel Sales and Marketing The Lure of Lore: Connecting with Customers Through a Unique Brand Story A Careful Balancing Act A Meaningful Relationship: How Technology Affects the Connection Between Hospitality Marketers and Meeting Planners SPECIAL SECTION: The 2007 HSMAI Adrian Awards Building Five Star Imagery

Marketing Review - Spring 2008

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