Business Travel News - November 30, 2009 - (Page 24)

Embracing Mtgs. Management Practices BY MICHAEL B. BAKER Large market buyers are following the largest travel buyers in embracing meetings management best practices, with a majority capturing data for their meetings and leveraging hotel negotiations with their transient volumes. Consultants also said the economic downturn has spurred more large market buyers to step up demand management policies for their meetings programs and centralize meetings management functions. Business Travel News research showed that just over half of the large market respondents reported that they captured data for most meetings during 2008. Meetings industry consultants said that percentage undoubtedly grew this year, as meetings buyers faced internal and external pressure to control meetings spending. “I’m surprised the number is that low,” said George Odom, senior director of business development for BCD Travel consulting division Advito. “There’s no question that there’s much more interest in meeting spend than in the past, and people are collecting that information.” A slightly stronger majority, 60 percent, of Corporate Travel 100 buyers reported having thorough meeting data collection capabilities in 2008. Such capabilities came from investing in technology to capture data and register all meetings, according to Kevin Iwamoto, vice president of enterprise strategy for meetings management technology supplier StarCite. Large market buyers have little choice to follow suit, he said. “If they haven’t made that investment, they’re still scratching in the dark,” Iwamoto said. “They have to scrape information from the corporate card, general ledger and other places and then assume what is meeting spend and what isn’t meeting spend, so they just have hypothetical data.” A good grasp on meetings data is just as important for risk mitigation purposes as it is for cost control, Iwamoto said. If an incident happens at a certain hotel in a certain city, buyers can Cos. That Captured Data For Most Meetings, 2008 11% Yes No Don’t know 38% 51% quickly determine whether they have transient travelers staying at the property, but could miss out on corporate events there if they cannot access the data, he said. “A lot of meetings that take place aren’t booked through the usual travel channels,” according to Iwamoto. “You might have all the necessary processes in place to deal with catastrophic or weather-related events, but unless you have a program in place, you’ll have no access to those meetings. It can give you a false sense of security.” The increased need for data correlates with more large market companies centralizing meetings with purchasing functions. In 2008, 46 percent of large market buyers reported that the two units were centrally consolidated. This also is growing, however, if Corporate Travel 100 benchmarking is any indication, as consolidation for those companies crossed the 50 percent threshold in 2008. In a non-consolidated environment, meetings costs often are spread across numerous units, including training, marketing and travel, Advito’s Odom said. While this allows meetings to fly under the radar in prosperous times, the economic downturn has spurred senior management to take a sharper interest in what the company is spending on group travel. “When profits are smaller, companies are going to be more interested in controlling more of their expenses,” according to Odom. “With the economy the way it’s been, they’re looking at all spending items. They’ve already cut down travel, so the next step is meetings.” This level of senior management involvement might even be greater at large market companies compared with Corporate Travel 100 companies, Odom said. For some on the smaller end of the large market, CEOs or CFOs might now be taking a direct interest in the meetings bottom line, as opposed to divisional executives or vice presidents in larger companies. As such, more large market companies are employing demand management practices with meetings. Part of this is reducing internal meetings, meeting closer to home and conducting meetings on company campuses rather than hotels, StarCite’s Iwamoto said. Some buyers configure online booking tools to challenge travelers at the point of sale about whether Average U.S. Meetings Volume, 2008 Total U.S. meetings dollars net of commissions and refunds for air, accommodation, ground transportation, etc. $12,629,000 November 30, 2009 www.BTNonline.com Business Travel News http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - November 30, 2009

Business Travel News - November 30, 2009
Contents
Sizing Up the Large Market
Finding Travel Program Opportunities
Large Market Profile: Estee Lauder's Cynthia Shumate
Business Class Use No Longer Dropping
Expanding Travel Agency Consolidation
Keeping Buyer Control of Hotel Rates
Using Booking Tools as Tech Backbones
Large Market Q&A: Ingersoll Rand's Thomas Barrett
Embracing Meetings Management Practices
Finding Room For Making Ground Moves

Business Travel News - November 30, 2009