Technology continues to change and improve, and everyone from meeting planners to hoteliers to destination marketing organizations is taking advantage of it to remain competitive, retain existing clients, or book new groups. The Business Journal’s Kari Hamanaka asked executives representing different facets of the industry how they’re leveraging technology to attract more meetings or conventions business. Here’s an edited version of their responses:
Tim Brown Chief Executive, Meeting Sites Resource, Irvine
We use a platform that is available to the industry. It’s called Meeting Evolution, and this technology is really focused on our industry’s biggest initiative, which is called Strategic Meetings Management. Strategic Meetings Management was launched some years ago by the Global Business Travel Association, and it’s their standards for enhancing meeting value and [return on investment].
We are really focusing on leveraging an organization’s total spend to create value-based negotiations. That’s a fancy term for saying that we basically track everything that goes on within a meeting for each customer pertaining to their overall meeting value. As an example, a hotel makes its biggest profit on sleeping rooms. It’s approximately 70% of gross profit, and obviously for all of our customers, they are booking sleeping rooms. So we track all the sleeping rooms booked for a meeting versus what is contracted, and we basically track the revenues that are generated to a hotel in terms of their sleeping rooms. Their second biggest profit center is food and beverage, which is 38% of gross profit, and then there’s ancillary spend, like the business center, AV and technology. We track all of this for every meeting. That way, when we book, we have business intelligence in the negotiations process.
This technology also allows our customers 24/7 access to this information.
Jay Burress President and Chief Executive, Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau, Anaheim
The convention center was one of the first in the country to offer free Wi-Fi to conventions. As an organization, we’re adding a 3-D mapping tool, which will assist planners in showcasing the destination and show-ing the proximity everything has to our campus.
That will be coming out over the next couple months. We’re excited about that. It will cover the entire county. We’re excited about showing the destination in this 3-D format and really featuring it to clients. We can display all of that with this tool and map it right there for them. It’s going to be a great tool for us to use, and there are not many visitor and convention bureaus that have something like this. We’re trying to really arm our salespeople with the best technology so they can go out and best represent and best sell our destination.
Michelle Donahue Senior Vice President of Sales, Visit Newport Beach Inc., Newport Beach
Visit Newport Beach Inc. leverages technology on a variety of platforms to attract meeting planners and attendees. First, we are extremely proud to have hosted the Bowl Championship Series delegation in early January. We wanted to ensure 10,000 visitors were able to find their way around Newport Beach. We created a complimentary destination app that tracked the visitor via GPS in real time and populated their device with local retailers, restaurants, attractions and vendors. The app also housed BCS-exclusive promotions from local businesses. The creation of the app was attractive to our client because it was extremely resourceful for attendees/visitors. Another tactic we are integrating into our plan is advance retargeting ad campaigns where we are strategically placing destination messaging across a multitude of online touch points to entice planners. In addition, we know that most planners work on tablets and mobile devices, so we have improved our website to a more responsive design. Lastly, of course, meeting-centric social media channels are always a focus in our overall initiatives.
Robert Donahue Director, resort, parks, sales and services, Disneyland Resort, Anaheim
At Disneyland, we focus on both standard and customized technology for our meetings business. At our hotels, we offer complimentary Wi-Fi in all guest rooms and hotel public areas. This—coupled with our resort truly being a destination unto itself, with three distinct convention hotels, great dining, retail and entertainment options all within walking distance—we feel our offerings are very competitive in exceeding the expectations of business travelers. For customized technology, Disney Event Group has the creative and technological resources to design a fully integrated technology and communications plan for planners who want assistance with marketing, on-site event messaging, or interactive special events. These components come together to deliver a group’s core message in a dynamic way throughout their meeting or event.
Enrique Paulo Director of sales, Shorebreak Hotel, Huntington Beach
There are a couple avenues we utilize in regards to helping grow the meeting business. One of the first value add-ons for potential meeting planners is complimentary Wi-Fi for attendees staying with us (the normal charge is $12.95 daily). There is also an upgrade available with a nominal fee to higher bandwidth if that is required. For meetings themselves, as a newer build hotel, we let potential clients know that all meeting and public space has Wi-Fi, as well as the latest data infrastructure available with very fast speeds and high bandwidth. Once programs are booked, we make every effort to make the reservations process easy, as well. We are able to provide a Web link for the meeting planner that allows their attendees to book directly through our website booking engine with all the groups’ contracted rates available. Also, on the tangible end of technology, we ran a special promotion at the end of 2013 that if you contracted a program before end of year, you would receive an Apple iPad based on certain minimums. We ended up closing 5 to 6 meetings based just on that. People love their tech toys, including meeting planners.
