Plan Your Meetings

Small meetings feel the squeeze

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By Kristi Casey

Soaring hotel occupancy rates and diminished room supply are starting to squeeze small meetings. Heather Hawes, director of special events, Institutional Advancement, at Atlanta's Spellman College, says she’s seeing small meetings getting bumped in favor of larger meetings “all the time.”

Penny Baldwin, an executive assistant with Eastman Kodak Company, says, “Sometimes they’ll just move you. They moved our group to a sister property, in Myrtle Beach. I wasn’t able to do a site inspection, and I wasn’t present at the meeting. When the group arrived, I started getting horrible phone calls. And I was so embarrassed.”

Jackie Moore, events specialist with Atlanta’s Grady Health System, says it’s hard finding hotels that will book small meetings these days. “Hotels will turn you down flat,” she says. “Last year, I had a meeting of local doctors and nurses, so they didn’t need rooms, but we needed the conference space. And I had the hardest time in Buckhead finding someone to take us because they wanted the rooms. The Sheraton Buckhead was the only one who would take us. Now I have to go outside of Atlanta just to have a conference.”

According to a February 2006 study released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, occupancy rates are expected to rise to 64 percent this year, accompanied by room rate increases of up to 10 percent in some markets. Meanwhile, a lack of new construction and condo-hotel conversions are diminishing supply. Meeting planners, who until recently enjoyed being in the driver’s seat during negotiations, are learning to make concessions. Nedra Ball, president of Travel Gala, says, “[Hotels] are not willing to negotiate on rates. They’ll stick to a higher rate, but throw in free Internet access or something. Starwood wants 60 to 90 days out. But you don’t know when the president will come in and want to meet with the executives.”

With hotels enjoying more leverage in negotiations, small meetings planners need to be more creative when approaching the table. Before you sign the dotted line, add a clause prohibiting the property from bumping your meeting or outlining what benefits your group will get if it’s moved at the last minute. Also, investigate the reason they are canceling or relocating your group, and find out what the property will do to facilitate communications and help you make it up to your clients and attendees. Prioritize your criteria and pick what’s most important to you and then be flexible on other points. Are rates crucial or are dates more important? Can you adapt your space needs? Doing your homework will help sell your business to the property; knowing the meeting history, especially the revenue spent by the group, will help with negotiations.

Also, make sure to check “hot dates” and off-season or shoulder seasons. Asking when the hotel needs your business will help you find a time your meeting can be accommodated and lessen the chance of a bigger group displacing you.