Meeting News - February 15, 2010 - (Page 6)

Newsmaker Carlson Hotels Tasks Hamilton With Global Sales For N.A. Carlson Hotels Worldwide in recent weeks opened its first sales office in the New York City area, focused on selling international properties to U.S. meetings and travel buyers, and appointed 26year industry veteran Kaaren Hamilton to oversee the office as vice president of global sales for North America. Hamilton since 2007 acted as Carlson Hotels’ director of national sales. Other positions have included roles at several New Jersey properties, such as the Hyatt Regency Jersey City, the Hilton Short Hills and the conference center The Palace at Somerset Park. She also is the president-elect of Meeting Professionals International’s New Jersey chapter. Hamilton in January spoke to MeetingNews associate editor Michael B. Baker about her goals in her newly created position and office. plate and more responsibilities, as we all are wearing multiple hats, it’s no longer typical that it’s a more seasoned person who’s sourcing internationally. It could be someone sourcing both domestic and international, and they really need assistance. A secondary goal that we hope to provide is education on international sourcing, planning and buying. MN: What’s your outlook for 2010? Hamilton: On the meetings side, we are seeing contracts being signed, so that’s very encouraging and a very different picture from a year ago. I’m still seeing my customers taxed with budget cuts and more stringent budget controls, and of course everybody is looking for improved operating efficiencies, so it’s showing their negotiating skills. There’s still a very close attention to return on investment and the value that a meeting brings to the stakeholders, so those issues haven’t gone away. We are seeing even shorter lead times. We’re working on programs here that take place in Europe and start on Feb. 1. MeetingNews: What’s Carlson’s aim in opening this sales office? Kaaren Hamilton: The goal in developing this office here in New Jersey, right outside of Manhattan, is really to bring together all of the resources of our 1,000 hotels into a single point, so that we’re easily accessible to our customers that are based here in the United States. The ultimate goal is to deliver great, personalized, hightouch service to both our corporate customers and our meetings and incentive customers. MN: What sort of sales opportunities will you be targeting? Hamilton: This is a global sales team that sells across the globe all of our brands, and it’s really focused on servicing the clients here in North America that have a business goal to get their business out to another theater. What we’ve seen in the past many years is that, as meeting planners and corporate travel buyers have more on their 6 MeetingNews February 15, 2010 MN: How will the office be structured? Hamilton: Not unlike other global sales organizations, we manage a set of our strategic accounts. One global sales director from this office would manage both the corporate transient MN: Are there any interside and the meetings and national markets that stand incentives business from that out as hotspots for group account. We’ve found that activity? delivers the best service, Hamilton: London, of because you have somebody course, is still in high who’s really a subject matter demand, as are cities in expert on that business and Western Europe like Brussels industry. If it’s a pharmaceuand Paris to some extent. tical company, then that perWe’ve seen a fair amount of Carlson Hotels’ Kaaren Hamilton son is really up to speed on activity for Berlin. what drugs are in the pipeline and what things might be affecting travel and what projects are MN: Do you expect much group activity at going on. We have a combination of folks here luxury properties this year? who have different expertise from around the Hamilton: Those properties have certainly gotworld, so we started the office with people who ten much more into the mix. They’ve had to. were with our company for many years, either in There’s certainly an atmosphere of flexibility and London or in Europe or, like me, here in the Unit- creativity. ed States with Carlson. MN: What are your plans for your new role MN: Is this a response to seeing more glob- with MPI? alized meetings programs in corporations? Hamilton: This also is a very exciting venture Hamilton: Absolutely. It’s not uncommon for for me. I start my term in June of this year and the global corporate travel manager to sit in New I’m looking forward to bringing a global flavor to York and have responsibility for the entire global the New Jersey chapter. Meeting Professionals program. From a convenience perspective, hav- International certainly has worked very strategiing somebody here in the same time zone or very cally in the last several years to globalize the close is certainly good customer service. We look organization. That is just the direction our industry is going. ❍ to react quickly to our clients that way. www.meetingnews.com http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - February 15, 2010

Meeting News - February 15, 2010
Contents
Newsmaker
Meetings Spotlight
Viewpoint
Meeting People
Construction Cites
Association Watch
Strategic Mtgs. Mgmt
Gaming Destinations
Island Incentives
Dateline: Hong Kong
South Regional
Travel Dashboard

Meeting News - February 15, 2010