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Corridor Hospitality: Meeting the Pressure |
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Venues pull out the stops in slowed economy
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| Corridor Inc. Staff Writer
Originally published May 2008
 Lori Kolker (right), president of Elle K Associates Inc., meets with Laura Weiss (left), sales manager of the Hilton in Rockville in the hotel’s Library Room. Photo by Christopher Myers.
Kolker, president and founder of Elle K Associates Inc., a Rockville-based meeting planning and hotel accommodations firm, organizes anywhere from 600 to 1,000 meetings a year. Her clients, which are 50 percent regional, 45 percent international and 5 percent national, include the government sector, nonprofits and corporate world.
“I’m slammed,” she said. “Everyday I’m getting at least four to five meetings and right now I’m juggling about 40 meetings on my desk.”
With the economy teetering on recession, business meeting budgets decreasing and gas prices rising, the Baltimore-Washington Corridor’s meetings industry may suffer a new set of challenges. In order to make ends meet, local meeting venues are beefing up their sales teams, offering value packages and hitting the pavement for new clients.
“On the business side, people will still travel but lessen the duration and squeeze two days of work into one,” said Jan D. Freitag, vice president of global development for Smith Travel Research, a hospitality industry consultant. “It’s going to be sluggish but meetings get booked so far in advance and businesses are out a lot of money if they cancel so that’s a last resort.”
Across all segments, room rates are predicted to increase 5.2 percent in 2008, said Freitag.
Despite rising room rates, planners can still find deals as meeting venues are willing to negotiate.
“We try to work with companies at this point because it is slow,” said Regina Ford, marketing director at Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City. “Business is down but I think people are seeing it everywhere; it isn’t a storm we haven’t weathered.”
At Turf Valley Resort, lull periods spark negotiations and are the ideal time to offer discounted dates and packages, said Ford.
“It’s not only about the price but what’s included in packages like an upgraded lunch or overnight accommodation,” she said.
In March, the hotel — with 40,000 square feet of meeting space — had 131 meetings, which accommodated between 10 and 415 people.
Despite a slow winter period, numbers will rise again in the fall, the busiest time for meetings, said Ford.
“We will have people begging for an October date,” she said. “Fall seems to be when many businesses begin their fiscal years and it’s before the holidays.”
To date, 73 meetings in October are booked at the resort.
Despite the economy, Showplace Arena has not had any cancellations this year, said Nancy Weiman, marketing manager of the Upper Marlboro venue, which offers three meeting rooms and an arena that seats up to 6,000 people.
“We seem to be getting more reservations from the business sector,” she said. “Clients are typically looking for one-stop shopping, which we have because we also do catering.”
Weiman said because there are many government operations close by, business is expected to stay steady.
Joyce Baki, director of sales for Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Conference and Visitors Bureau, has seen more meetings booked than last year, but they are smaller and more regionally focused. The bureau represents the hotel district around the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), among other areas in the county.
Baki said face-to-face selling has become critical in reaching clients.
“We’re out talking about the BWI area,” she said. “We’ve got wonderful meeting space, top notch, modern, large facilities so if you can’t find something there you’re in trouble.”
Venues are trying to increase, reinvent and educate their sales people to help improve their bottom line, said Louis L. Zagarino, chairman of the BWI Business Partnership and a long-time veteran of the BWI hotel district.
“Whatever sales effort they had before, they need a better one now,” said Zagarino. “The thing we have going for us in the BWI hotel district is that the market was underserved in early 2000.”
Inventory in the BWI hotel district has increased about 50 percent in the last five years, he added.
“A constant fight we have is teleconferencing because it cuts back on travel and is a big hit on hotels,” Zagarino said.
Many venues have seen cutbacks in traditional meetings such as less food being offered to attendees or cutting a day off from a longer meeting.
“We fortunately haven’t seen cancellations but instead of a full open bar maybe just beer and wine or downsize on food,” said Joe Koch, area sales leader for Marriott International.
Concessions are an added value, especially in the government market, added Kolker.
“They don’t have budgets for food and beverage so throwing in an audio visual or a complimentary breakfast is big,” she said.
Koch points to Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, which opened last month, as an economic generator.
To date, Gaylord has more than 1.3 million rooms booked through 2018 and leads have tripled since January, said Tina Sampson, vice president of sales and marketing. The first booking was in October 2004.
“There was this pent up demand here and we’re able to absorb some of that and create some new demand,” she said. “When you look at a pie we’re growing it, not taking it away. We’re able to provide a solution that didn’t exist before.”
Customers book from six months to sometimes 10 years out at Gaylord, which does 85 percent convention business. Currently, demand is for meetings in the next six months.
“We have a recession-proof thing here and people want to come to Baltimore,” said Sampson.
The region’s meetings industry will go through some sensitive times in the next year or two, said Zagarino.
“To make it, business people are going to have to work even harder than ever before,” he said. “It’s a tough market to penetrate; you can’t just open your doors anymore.” |
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