ViewPoint - June / July 2008

Meeting Demographics
Guess Who’s Coming To The Conference?
Susan V. Morris

As Karen was planning her last few meetings, she noticed the number of special requests flooding in. Sandy was bringing her two-year-old daughter and her mother to care for her — could she please have an extra large guest room and a refrigerator? Marie was bringing her college roommate

Susan V. Morris is principal of the NewHeight Group, a consulting firm specializing in strategic planning and brand marketing. She spent 13 years with Marriott International in marketing and sales. She is a professional speaker and co-author of the college textbook Hospitality Sales: A Marketing Approach (Wiley, 1999). For information, visit www.newheightgroup.com.

and wanted to tag on a weekend so that they could celebrate their 50th birthdays together. Joe’s wife was coming and he needed to ensure that she could run her business from their room while Joe attended meetings.

Diverse Membership Needs
Have you started using a Request For Proposal (RFP) that asks not how many singles versus doubles the hotel can accommodate, but requires knowing how the hotel will handle the significant number of attendees who will be bringing their kids, a nanny, a parent or a working spouse? The new profiles of meeting attendees’ travel companions create new requirements in terms of guest room configurations, types of personal and professional services, as well as the hours at which they are needed. It may be time to do a “working spouse” or “single parent” audit of hotels you are considering for a conference to determine how well they meet these specific needs.

Organizations can no longer ignore the changing lifestyles of their

“Have you started using an RFP that...requires knowing how the hotel will handle the significant number of attendees who will be bringing their kids, a nanny, a parent or a working spouse?”

increasingly diverse membership. In order to attract members to conventions, it is imperative to understand their needs and requirements. As the personal and professional components of people’s lives become more and more intertwined, there are increasing and exciting opportunities to differentiate your organization and the events it hosts.

Apart from the multiple roles filled by two-income parents and single working parents who are raising children, there is an increasing number of baby boomers caring for aging parents. This entails juggling additional responsibilities and can increase the stress of daily life. The new goal of convention hosts is to provide help with life’s details so that attendees can focus on the business at hand. Perhaps the role of the hotel concierge and convention help desk needs to be re-evaluated with more focus on ways to help attendees and their guests accomplish some of the more mundane tasks of daily life. Am I the only one who has had my car cleaned, paid bills online or produced my annual holiday newsletter while away at a conference?

As it is possible nowadays to work from anywhere, many people accompanying others on a trip need a guest room and services available as their office. Apart from providing functional in-room workspace, many hotels offer free faxing, printing and copying in a self-service 24-hour business center. Renaissance Hotels offer a Wired for Business package for $14.95 per day that includes high-speed Internet access, all local and long distance calls, and printing. Documents are delivered to your room. Fairmont Hotels and Resorts offer 24-hour technical assistance to their guests for computer-related issues, supported by Fairmont’s corporate IT department.

Family-Friendly Hotels
Some hotels are differentiating themselves by responding to the desire of parents to keep in touch with kids while away from home. In their business centers, they have set up a Web camera with an invitation to parents to use it to “call” home after school to check on homework assignments or in the evening to say good night to their kids. It takes

“The trend of combining conference trips with leisure time will continue. Ninety percent of business travelers combine leisure with a trip at least once a year.”

calling home to another level when parents can see their kids and vice versa.  Other hotels offer to customize the servicing of rooms based on the needs of attendees with young children.

Seven million children fly alone each year to join a parent, often in conjunction with a conference. Some hotels enthusiastically welcome kids by providing games such as in-house scavenger hunts and back-of-house tours. For attendees bringing friends or parents to meetings, hotels provide walking tour maps that give an “off the beaten path” orientation to the neighborhood.

The trend of combining conference trips with leisure time will continue. Ninety percent of business travelers combine leisure with a trip at least once a year. These trips provide breaks from the routine, are more manageable than longer trips, are inexpensive and can be achieved even on an impulse basis. They particularly appeal to couples who work as well as those looking for ways to spend time with family members who may or may not live nearby.

There are additional aspects of meetings and conventions that offer opportunities to respond to members’ desires. For example, which components of the meeting are companions invited to? What are the most suitable and innovative spousal programs to offer? Who incurs the expenses of companions and how is billing managed? The needs of meeting attendees go far beyond the hotel to the entire conference experience. Engage your partners in making the entire transportation, meeting and optional activities programs the best in the industry for both attendees and their travel companions. Then sit back and watch the attendance and loyalty of your members soar.    ACF