Chapter 5
Selling the Corporate
Meetings Market
Convention Management and Service
Seventh Edition
(478CSB)
© 2006, Educational Institute
Competencies for
Selling the Corporate Meetings Market
1. Identify factors that corporate meeting planners
consider when making a site selection.
2. Describe the different types of corporate meetings.
3. Identify characteristics of corporate meetings that are
important for selling to the corporate market.
4. Identify who typically decides where to hold a
corporate meeting.
5. Describe the tools salespeople use to locate
corporations and to find information about the
meetings they hold.
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What Corporate Meeting Planners
Look For
1. Quality food service
• F&B functions are major contributors to
success of an event
• Very important to planners and attendees
2. Adequate meeting space
3. Service
• Most important element in repeat business
4. Enough guestrooms
• Prefer to use only one host property
© 2006, Educational Institute
(continued)
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What Corporate Meeting Planners
Look For
(continued)
5. Convenient location
• Downtown, airport, and certain suburban
properties
6. Attractive location
• Consistent with image of the corporation
• Especially true for incentive meetings
7. Security
• Prefer to meet away from busy areas
• Often prefer to be the only group in the hotel
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Types of Corporate Meetings
1. National and regional sales meetings
2. New product introduction/dealer meetings
3. Professional/technical meetings
4. Management meetings
5. Training meetings
6. Stockholder/public meetings
7. Incentive meetings
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Sales and New Product
Introduction/Dealer Meetings
Sales Meetings
• One of the largest sectors of the corporate
meetings market
• National attendance about 150, duration 3-4 days
• Regional attendance about 50, duration 2-3 days
• Meetings may involve new product introductions,
sales training, or morale building
• Good source of repeat business for hotels
• Generally staged by the sales and marketing
department of each division of a company
© 2006, Educational Institute
(continued)
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Sales and New Product
Introduction/Dealer Meetings
(continued)
New Product Introduction/Dealer Meetings
• National and regional in scope
• Method of creating enthusiasm
• Vary greatly in size and duration
• Attract top company management, stockholders,
and the press
• Excellent chance to "show off" the property and
attract new business
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Professional/Technical and
Management Meetings
Professional/Technical Meetings
• Often take seminar and workshop formats
• Lecture and demonstration by consultants,
educators, and/or vendors
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Professional/Technical and
Management Meetings
(continued)
Management Meetings
• May be regular events, or in response to
specific situations
• Usually small in size, but premier facilities
are required
• Attendees are prospects for divisional or
company meetings
• Geographical location varies greatly
• Commonly last two days
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Training and Stockholder/Public
Meetings
Training Meetings
• All levels of corporate personnel require training
• Training meetings in hotels account for the largest
number of corporate meetings
• Attendance is usually less than 50, average nearer 30
• Duration is usually 3 days
• Special requirements: A/V capability, minimal
distractions, adequate light, prompt service
• Rarely require prestigious locations
• Trainers tend to return to hotels where everything
worked out well
© 2006, Educational Institute
(continued)
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Training and Stockholder/Public
Meetings
(continued)
Stockholder/Public Meetings
• Meetings for nonemployees
• Public relations and industrial relations
hold exhibits and meetings
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Incentive Meetings
•
A meeting is included in 80 percent of all such trips
•
Attendees and planners look for first-class service
and accommodations
•
Bookings usually guaranteed
•
Participants use all of the facilities of the hotel
•
Usually indicates high revenue
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Characteristics of Corporate
Meetings
Cycle/pattern
Lead time
Geography
Kinds of sites
Attendance
• Mandatory
• Highly predictable
• Use of rooming lists and VIP lists common
Duration: average 3 days
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Characteristics of Corporate
Meetings
(continued)
Exhibits
Meeting room requirements
• Especially need breakout rooms near larger rooms
Repeat business
Multibooking potential
One meeting—one check: master account
Meetings business brings other business
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Cycle/Pattern and Lead Time
Cycle/Pattern
• Irregular
• As-needed basis
• Usually midweek
Lead Time
• Short compared to associations
• Incentive meetings: 8–12 months to 2 years
• Annual sales meeting: 8–12 months
• Most others: 3–6 months
• Crisis meetings: virtually no lead time
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Geography and Kinds of Sites
Geography
• No pattern
• No reason to vary site to attract attendees,
since attendance is mandatory
• Convenience is most important geographic
criterion
Kinds of Sites
• Variety; depends on purpose of meeting and
position of attendees
• Each property has the right features to host
some kind of corporate meeting
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Repeat Business and Multibooking
Potential
Repeat Business
• Training meetings
• Crisis meetings
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Repeat Business and Multibooking
Potential
(continued)
Multibooking Potential
• Same meeting program may be repeated in
several locations
• Good for
a) chains,
b) hotels with cooperative agreements
with hotels in other cities, and
c) hotels that use independent hotel
representatives
• More difficult for independent hotels to
attract corporations that repeat meetings
© 2006, Educational Institute
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Techniques for Selling Corporate
Meetings
•
Sell the decision-maker, not a go-between.
•
Start at the top of the organization chart.
•
Pay attention to tomorrow’s decision-maker.
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Corporate Meeting Decision-makers
•
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Full-time meeting planner
Company president
Marketing and sales executives
Advertising and sales promotion managers
Other corporate executives: corporate relations; public
relations; industrial relations; communications
Passenger traffic/corporate travel managers
Procurement (purchasing) managers
Training director
Meeting specialists/third-party planners
© 2006, Educational Institute
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Tools for Finding Corporate
Meeting Planners
Special Meetings Publications
• These publications offer advertisement space,
sales-lead services, and rental lists for direct mail
• Successful Meetings
• Meetings & Conventions
• Meeting News
Business Publications
• Reach some important prospects
• Readership is much broader than target market(s)
© 2006, Educational Institute
(continued)
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Tools for Finding Corporate
Meeting Planners
(continued)
Trade Directories and Publications
Trade Associations
• Their executive directors can give you
important leads
Lateral Referral and Penetration
• Local suppliers could recommend the property
• Large companies have many divisions to
penetrate
• Hotel employees may have leads for meetings
business
© 2006, Educational Institute
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Trade Directories and Publications
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Research the industries of past clients
Dun and Bradstreet’s Million Dollar Directory
Standard and Poor's Register of Directors and
Executives
Ward’s Business Directory
Meeting Professionals International Membership
Directory
Science and Technical Societies in the U.S. and
Canada
Directory of Corporate Meeting Planners
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