Meeting News - February 16, 2009 - (Page Cover3)

Live from the Forum @ MeetingNews.com TOPIC: Contract Addendum When Exceeding Room Block I have an event that begins on Feb. 8, and I am in the very fortunate position of Do you have a burning question to exceeding my block. Our original block was for a total of 110 room nights; we are ask your peers? Log on to the currently at 144 room nights. I just received a contract addendum from the hotel MeetingNews Forum to get answers with a revised block and increased costs for attrition and cancellation. I fully underfast. meetingnews.com/forum stand that by asking the hotel to protect rooms and take them out of inventory means I have to carry the ﬁnancial responsibility with that request. In this case, I did not ask to increase the block, or ask to extend a cutoff date, or ask to continue taking reservations at our negotiated group rate, so I am not sure why I should agree to this addendum. Can anyone enlighten me? Catherine Schrock, CMP, Marketing Events Manager, PACCAR Parts, Renton, WA They are asking you to sign something after the fact that goes above and beyond your original contract. This to me looks like the hotel is looking to cover itself and make sure it isn’t hit with cancellations and you take the rap. If the hotel is reserved individually by your attendees, and they pay for their own rooms, it should be up to the hotel to take the burden of cancellations above anything that you contracted. The hotel should handle the cancellation with the attendee directly. If the attendee is part of the original block of rooms, then understandably the attrition burden falls on you. Eli Gorin, Owner, gMeetings Inc., Aventura, FL Congratulations on your good fortune of having a group pick up so well. Here’s the deal: Don’t sign it. The hotel has found money with your group. Once it made the choice to take rooms beyond your block, it assumed responsibility for the additional rooms. In this economy, most hotels would be delighted with this problem. Dianne Davis, Meetings and Marketing Consultant, Broken Arrow, OK I agree with Eli. I have this same “problem” with one of my clients every year, and I never have had this type of addendum. My hotel was very happy we broke block in the positive. I would not sign this contract. Your hotel should be happy, provide the rooms, and take the revenue, which is a reversal of trends right now. Sue Fern, President, Event Pro-SSSS, Palm Harbor, FL The same thing just happened to me. We were presented with an addendum. I asked the hotel sales manager—yet not wanting to be adversarial—what would happen if we didn’t sign. The SM didn’t have the answer and needed to take it to the director of sales. Long and short of it was the hotel had the rooms and continued to sell them, even past the extended reservation deadline. Should we have signed it as a show of good faith to the hotel, which extended itself on our behalf? Perhaps. But the program chair did not want to be in the position of committing to a larger block. Nancy Sutta Berns Corporate Meetings & Incentives Program Manager, New York City Don’t sign any addendums. The hotel is fortunate to have additional rooms/revenue from your group. This should have been in your initial contact, but try to negotiate it now. It amazes me that hotels penalize the client when they add additional revenue—especially in this economy. I think that the revenue managers need to get out of the box that they sit in and realize what the industry is in right now. Diana Maccia, Regional Director, HelmsBriscoe, Ocean Township, NJ TOPIC: Downsizing Meetings? ’m in the process of putting a memo together for my boss—and I need a quick pulse. How many of you are planning to or already have cut the length of your annual meeting and eliminated other smaller meetings either in response to the economy or just to save costs? Lisa L. Dyson, Director of Conference Services Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Alexandria, VA I I produce conferences for the packaging industry. We have cut two of our events down from 1-1/2 days to one-day events to cut costs and hopefully draw more attendees, since they would be out of the ofﬁce for a shorter time and save on hotel costs. Our October event did well. We are taking a huge hit on the late-January event. Attendance is down drastically, and we kept two of our four staff members home to cut costs (myself included). Karen Close, CMP, Senior Events Manager BNP Media/Packaging Strategies, West Chester, PA I’m an independent planner. One client has cut pre- and post-conference training; this used to be a big draw. Based on my most recent surveys, the attendees can’t be out of the ofﬁce long and spend much. They are lucky if they get approval to go to the main program. The registrations are short by at least 25 percent versus previous years. Another client canceled its large annual program entirely. A third client decided to replace its annual threeday program with a series of one-day events across the country. Michelle Santee Tupps, Safety Harbor, FL MEETING NEWS (ISSN 0145-630X, USPS No.356-010, February 16 2009, Vol. 33, No. 3 is published semi-monthly except for January, June, August, November and December, which is monthly, by Nielsen Business Media, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003-9595, tel. 646-654-5000. Subscriptions are offered free of charge to individuals actively engaged in planning meetings or conventions in the U.S. and Canada. The cost of a subscription to non-qualiﬁed subscribers is $79 in the U.S. and $95 in Canada (Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40031729). The cost of a foreign subscription, payable in U.S. dollars, is $195. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing ofﬁces. MeetingNews is a trademark owned exclusively by Nielsen Business Media. Copyright © 2009 by Nielsen Business Media Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this magazine, in whole or in part, is prohibited unless authorized by the publisher. For address changes (please include mailing label), single copy sales ($10 per issue including shipping and handling, prepayment required), subscription information, and other customer service inquiries, write to MEETING NEWS, P.O. Box 1189, Skokie, IL 60076-8189 or call 847-763-9050. Printed in the USA. POSTMASTER: Send changes of address to MEETING NEWS, P.O. Box 1189, Skokie, IL 60076-8189. www.meetingnews.com February 16, 2009 MeetingNews 41 http://groups.google.com/group/MiForum http://www.meetingnews.com/forum http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - February 16, 2009

Meeting News - February 16, 2009
Contents
What’s Up @ MeetingNews.com
People Making News
International
Technology
MN Webcast Report
Ad Index
Live from the Forum

Meeting News - February 16, 2009