writerguyfl

There's real value for meeting planners to work with the National Sales Offices of large hotel groups (Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, etc). Any planner that coordinates a reasonably large annual convention will have a dedicated contact. Unless the convention changes drastically year-to-year, all the planner needs to do is approve the Request-for-Proposal (RFP) and the Sales contact will do all the work.

Additionally, the quotes the planner receives might be slightly better because hotels within a given hotel group will share information. (I've seen this from working in hotel sales.) For example, it would be normal for a sales manager at one Hyatt hotel to call the last Hyatt hotel where a group stayed to get some details. Hotels won't (or at least shouldn't) share actual pricing, they will provide generalizations about whether the group caused problems or how accurate their numbers turned out to be.

If the hotel completing the RFP knows that the group picked up 90% of the requested room block instead of the normal 60% for that type of meeting, the quote will be more accurate. More accuracy might mean slightly better rates and/or cancelation terms.

-----

Of course, nothing stops a meeting planner from engaging this process with one of the Las Vegas casino groups. But starting from scratch with a new company is a pretty big task. (The information needed to get an accurate quote is very detailed. And, it always involves a credit check.)

If a meeting planner can add Las Vegas to the fix of convention cities by just making a single phone call to they Hyatt National Sales Manager, they will do that instead of spending hours compiling information for Caesars or MGM.

I'm not into the doom and gloom prognostications that the world has changed forever. Conventions will return, as will cruises.