Meeting News - January 28, 2008 - (Page 40)

Cover Story Marriott continued from cover dent of sales for Marriott International, stressed that this initiative is different from the traditional regional sales office structure, under which reps sell for hotels located in their areas to clients and prospects nationwide. Rather,“each Marriott salesperson will represent our worldwide portfolio for customers located in the same area,” he said. And, J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Marriott chairman and CEO, said the new structure “allows our salespeople to create a one-on-one customer relationship and represent all our brands with an individual customer. This means our sales teams, no matter where they are, will also have access to the information about that particular customer, and our meeting clients won’t have to continue to inform the latest [individual property] salesperson about who they are and how much business they give us.” The transition of sales reps to centralized offices is not absolute. Those Marriott properties that regularly host large meetings will continue to have sales reps on property. But David Marriott, senior vice president of global sales, noted that more than 80 percent of the meetings held at Marriott properties have less than 300 attendees. Giving those clients one sales contact allows Marriott to more quickly find a suitable venue among any of its brands in a chosen city. “For the customer, it’s like having a personal shopper who can find the right hotels in the right location at the right price,” he said. There are reservations about the new structure from many quarters. David Marriott acknowledged that some owners of Marriott-branded properties are concerned about continuing to receive their fair share of leads once their properties have no individual reps. He countered that “the number of clients and prospects we can now call on is many times larger, so each property will get the amount of business it desires.” As for meeting planners, several put forward doubts about Marriott’s problem-resolution ability and chain of command on MeetingNews’ online forum, at meetingnews.com/forum. One wrote: “With no one else to turn to on site, I guess you with a centralized sales force.” A Marriott spokesperson said that these concerns were anticipated, and the company surveyed more than 200 meeting clients, most of whom said that they were comfortable with sales and service being separated. The spokesperson emphasized, “Our sales associates are still an integral part of the hotel team even though they are not located on property. They have strong relationships with the hotels. And the director of event management at each hotel is a highly regarded member of the leadership team and will be an important advocate for the customer.” In the 1990s, Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels tried a similar initiative to Marriott’s Sales Force One, calling it Hyatt Book Direct and putting reps in cities where many customers were located. The program was abandoned after a few years, but from it came a large expansion of Hyatt’s national sales structure, from 19 to 80 reps. Fred Shea, vice president of sales for Hyatt, said that “the reason Marriott has a chance to make this work is that they have so many hotels in each market. So, if you call looking to book a specific property in one city but it’s not available, the rep can check quickly on whether another property in that city is suitable and available for the meeting. When you have that many brands in each market, you can consolidate sales costs and productivity into one office by reducing the number of reps at the individual properties. It’s an attractive possibility for a hotel company.” Based on Hyatt’s experience, Shea sees Marriott’s main challenge as serving planners whose meetings are far ahead in time.“The further out a meeting is booked, the tougher it is to make it work. [Convention services managers] are operationally oriented—they are focused on the meetings that are on property today and next week,” said Shea. In other words, planners with future meetings may not be able to count on occupied CSMs to tend to their questions immediately. “Centralized sales reps will call you back quickly, but there is a certain knowledge that sales reps acquire by being on property, and there are things that on-site reps can get done better because of their relationships with a property’s department heads.” But Shea added, “With [Marriott’s] initiative’s focus being on meetings of under 300 attendees, most lead times won’t be more than three to six months out. So Marriott is going to try to finesse things a little bit. To me, there’s no clear-cut answer as to whether this is altogether good or bad for Marriott, or for the customer. They will work their way through it.” For its part, Marriott seems willing to listen to clients as the initiative progresses; the company’s spokesperson said that “changes to the strategy will be implemented as needed.” r www.meetingnews.com a little bit. To me, there’s no clear-cut answer as to whether this is altogether good or bad for Marriott, or for the customer. —Fred Shea, VP of sales, Hyatt Hotels Marriott is “try to finessegoing to things ” would just have to go directly to the GM. I don’t have time to go through event managers who [may not be] empowered to make decisions.” Another wrote that Marriott should “expect their GMs to be a lot busier than anticipated, or perhaps the GM will leave the problems to a manager [on duty].” And a third poster noted that “the institutional knowledge of [an on-site sales manager] will be lost Carlson’s Executive Ranks Get Shaken Up Company goes outside the family for first time in its 70-year history Minneapolis—Signaling a new era at Carlson, the meetings and travel management giant, Marilyn Carlson Nelson has stepped down as president and CEO. Hubert Joly, the current head of Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT)—a division of Carlson— will replace Carlson Nelson on March 1. Joly will be the first non-Carlson family member to sit at the company’s helm in its 70-year history. Carlson Nelson, a co-owner of the company who said she is voluntarily vacating her job, will continue to serve as Carlson’s chairman of the board. “It was the right time to make this historic move because our company is well-positioned to build on our global brands and services,” Carlson Nelson told MeetingNews. “It was my plan when I became CEO to identify a successor before my 10th anniversary in the role, and I have been our com40 MeetingNews January 28, 2008 pany’s chief executive officer for 10 years. I am pleased with the progress we have made in expanding our brands and operations worldwide; Hubert is well-qualified to build on that momentum.” Under Joly, who joined the division in mid-2004, CWT’s sales grew from $8.9 billion in 2003 to about $22 billion in 2007. He declined to comment on what changes will be made at Carlson once he takes the top spot. However, regarding the company’s meetings business, he said: “Carlson is active in this space in two of its divisions, Carlson Marketing and Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Our clients can benefit from collaboration between these two divisions around the world. I am looking forward to working with the Carlson Marketing team on the opportunities available to us, as well as to our clients.” r http://meetingnews.com/forum http://www.meetingnews.com

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