Conference Team Incentives & Office Practice

The Conference Office. So many different ways of working, but which is the best?  Depending on the type of property you are working in, this office has many guises; Event Management, Reactive Phone Sales, Wedding Planner, Social Function Managers, Proactive Conference & Groups Manager, the list goes on and on...  We come across many different ways of dividing responsibility between these different roles.  Do your reactive sales team do show rounds, or is that left to Sales?  Are the reactive team there just to take the calls and get the contract signed before handing over to the event manager who is responsible for up selling of technology and other extras? Does the Director of Event Management work with the Director of Revenue to construct a coherent battle plan for groups &  meetings with bedrooms?  Are you fighting with the rooms division to get bedrooms for a specific function?  Are weddings shared amongst the team, or are they looked after by a double act?  One person to proactively sell this segment, and another to look after the parade of “Bridezillas”  that arrive in the hotel, and have to have their every whim catered for from 6 months out to the morning after the night before?  Time consuming for a relatively small amount of revenue – depending on the client of course!  But a small price to pay for filling your space every Friday, Saturday and Sunday with weddings!

Once you have got your department sorted, and working like a well oiled machine, the biggest question is – How do we incentivise all of these staff in such different roles? For those hotels that have a significant amount of space, which drives some business, but is not the major focus of the hotel (rooms nearly always being the focus!)  putting these incentives in place can be a very difficult  sell to the GM, and the justification can take a lot of time to be proven. Especially as some of these measures will take at least 3 months to realise their potential, which is the same with most sales functions of the hotels.

We looked at the importance of turndowns in a previous blog post (click HERE for the link), and from our perspective one of the most important factors in getting these incentives set up is to make sure your own data is up to scratch, and as accurate as it can be. After all, would you want to be  judged on your own performance with bad data?  Putting in place a good incentive which relies on accurate data  can also provide a welcome boost to the poor data integrity in your systems as well  - “I am being measured on the success of upselling this meeting – If I don’t add the revenue correctly under the correct code, it won’t count in my revenue total”. One of the main goals here at The Conference Bench is to automate the upload of data from hotels to the system, but data integrity within systems at times is so poor, hotels will not even consider it, leaving the finance team to provide the high integrity data that is required to take part.    We are still constantly surprised that Conference & Banqueting reporting still lags so far behind the exact science of bedrooms reporting.

So what can be measured once you have all of your data systems in place, and  you are recording your Conference Office’s every £ of revenue and the activity that surrounds it?

Conversion rates – one for direct bookings and one for agency bookings? Are you even tracking the call volume that is coming in to your office for MICE business?

Revenue Targets– are these, monthly, quarterly, annually, or all of the above?  Do you have an up selling target? Are group rooms included in the target?

Customer Satisfaction – Test calls?  Are your reactive team asking the right questions to capture the vital information needed to convert bookings? Click here for one of our favourites – BDRC's Venue Verdict

So we have some of the measures above – we then come the question of how you reward success in these measures?  - is it with vouchers? Cash bonuses?  Extra rooms provided within chain hotels portfolio of hotels?

This is going to sound obvious, but one of the key things to understand when deciding this is – What will our staff respond to? What will motivate them to try and really beat their targets for the above measures? Will they be happy just to reach the target, or will their bonus be increased for every 10% that they achieve over their target?

There are a few measures above – how do YOU do it on property? Are you putting this in place for your teams at the moment?  What difficulties are you having getting it setup?  Does your GM believe it will help drive the business forward? What incentives do you use for your Conference Staff? Comment below!  Don’t forget, you can comment anonymously if needs be...

London Training Discount with Total Revenue Solutions

Once again the team at Total Revenue Solutions have come up with a great discount for Conference Bench clients and users!  They are holding three great training events in London in the coming months, and if you sign up using the code CB2010 you qualify for a 20% discount!
Please e-mail  learnmore@totalrevenuesolutions.com to sign up!


 Here are the courses:
   

London – 21^st/22^nd July - An Introduction to Revenue Management is a two-day training event for anyone who would like to understand the core principles of revenue management and how to apply the principles to their business. The aim of this course is to develop a critical understanding of Revenue Management techniques and how to apply them in your business. Delegates will understand what is required to begin to develop a revenue management culture within their organisation. Modules covered include: Segmentation, Revenue Performance and Analytics, Business and Market Intelligence and Principles of Yield Management. Please click HERE for more information.

£399 per person before CB discount

London – 17^th September - How to Run An Effective Revenue Meeting  is a one day training event for anyone who leads or participates in Revenue, Yield or Commercial meetings and would like to make them more effective. The aim of this programme is to investigate the most effective ways to encourage active participation and buy in from everyone who attends the Revenue Meeting.   Delegates will understand what is required to begin to develop an action orientated, revenue culture. Delegates will explore the area of multiple intelligences and engagement to maximise the effectiveness of their Revenue Meetings. The weekly Revenue Meeting is one of the most critical meetings of the week – at least it should be!  Delegates will learn about the importance that planning plays in achieving a successful outcome, including investigating the key commercial drivers (the ACTIONS!) that should form the weekly outputs of the meeting, to drive commercial results for their hotels. Please click HERE for more information. £125 per person before CB Discount.

London – 4^th October - Effective Presentation Skills for Revenue Managers is for anyone in the Revenue Management field who needs to present information and data and engage audiences. The aim of this programme is to develop Revenue Managers presentation skills and effectiveness when trying to gain buy in from colleagues and senior teams. Our highly practical course enables the learner to absorb a range of tips and techniques which they can immediately practice in a safe, supportive environment. Delegates will learn the importance of preparing content to ensure maximum engagement, with consideration for the “styles” of the audience. Advice will be given to delegates on how to successfully use audience interaction (in a non intimidating way) to give interest and momentum to their presentations. Throughout the day, delegates will be given the opportunity to put into practice what they have learned, and receive feedback from both the trainers and their fellow attendees. Please click HERE for more information. £125 per person before CB Discount.

Are there any areas that you feel need more training and development in the sphere of Conference & Banqueting?  Let us know in the comments!

Auditoriums - What can we do to fill this space at weekends?

Several of our client hotels have large auditoriums. The newer ones are decked out with the latest in Digital technology, good enough to match any local cinema. These spaces are fantastic for corporate presentations, product launches, and other such corporate events.  But what to do with these spaces during the weekend?  During the World Cup we have seen several of these properties utilise the space for big screenings of the matches - but what to do when the World Cup is finished, and you have a lot of weekend availability for your Auditorium?

One example that we have seen recently is from The MayFair Hotel in London.  Once a month they do a great deal which gives a lunch or brunch which includes a ticket to a film screening. Link here for the film deal, and here for the schedule. Not only is this a good way of adding value to your auditorium, it is a nice way of pushing some extra revenue through your F&B departments.

What about your auditorium?  Have you found a good way to drive business into these different, but diverse meeting spaces?  comment below!

A Friday Tale...

We have all been there - turning conference rooms in the middle of the night, all hands on deck - other departments from all over the hotel mucking in to make sure the next day's room setups are ready: The ballroom now spotless (especially difficult after the corporate party that turned into a drinking competition that finished only hours ago!), the table cloths set out and folded correctly,  pads and pens in place, water on the table. You wander in to the back of the house to get the arrival break ready, the coffee machine is gurgling, and the smell of freshly baked pastries and croissants raises a sharp pang of hunger in your stomach, as you realise the last food that passed your lips was a cold banquet dinner over 12 hours ago. Morning break in place, its now time for a last walk around the meeting rooms, glancing at your banquet event order, checking off each syndicate room. You come to the last 2 on the list with 10 minutes to go until the conference coordinator arrives (a particularly nasty one from past experience!). Then the sudden sinking feeling as you realise these final 2 syndicate rooms have been missed - they are still trashed from the night before! Panic sets in, the troops are rallied, the rooms turned, and only  ready just as the dreaded conference coordinator breezes through the front door of the hotel! The conference gets underway, and you retreat to the banquet office, physically and mentally exhausted after 18 hours on the frontline. You handover to the day team, and head homeward, sharing a wry smile with the other night staff who are also leaving for the daytime slumber which awaits.

On the bus home you have a wonderful day dream - those wretched syndicate rooms cleaning themselves, and the tables and chairs magically moving to the correct setup, just like the scene in Mary Poppins... it seems that this dream is not so far away......

Wishing you all a great weekend!

James, Perra & Gabriel. 

Brussels - Top European City of Association Conferences & Some Interesting Data

Today in the Travel Daily News, Brussels came out on top in Europe for Association Conferences. This piqued our interest here at The Conference Bench as we have had a pretty good sample going in the Brussels market for quite some time now.

The criteria that this is based on is as follows:

 “Brussels has risen not only to first place in Europe but also to second in the world according to the UIA criteria, which take into account meetings of at least 300 participants of 5 different nationalities for a minimum of 5 days. According to these same criteria, at least 40 per cent of the participants must come from abroad” Source: TravelDailyNews.com

The article goes onto explain that some of the reasons behind Brussels strong performance; Capital of Europe, phenomenal transport links and a lot of cross border meetings, which we wholeheartedly agree with. According to the article, Brussels held 402 meetings of this type. The reason that this got our minds buzzing is that 402 meetings of at least 300 people, with a minimum duration of 5 days... that must be A LOT of revenue, and seeing as we have the data, we thought we would share it with you.

The average revenue per delegate (RevPD) figure we have for the Brussels market since we started is €57.61, based on 14 properties participating. This is the total RevPD figure from October 2009 – May 2010 inclusive.      

So, doing some simple maths...

300 delegates  x 5 days x 402 events x €57.61 = €34,738,830.00

This is a massive amount of revenue that Association Conferences are bringing into the market!  Let alone the bedrooms! Thanks to STR Global data from YTD December 2009 we can add the ADR for Brussels of  €102.71, we can get a rough estimate of the total revenue: (we have gone with a minimum amount here in terms of rooms sold, so three nights at 175 beds sold per night.)

175 bedrooms x 3 nights x 402 events x €102.71 = €21,676,945.00

So at a conservative guess for the total revenue including bedrooms – €56,415,775.00 in one year! Wow!

We understand that these figures are estimated – we do not have a comprehensive sample in Brussels as yet, but still – what a total figure for one segment of the business in the city! 

Is your hotel in Brussels taking a piece of this revenue throughout the year?  What are you doing at hotel level to try and capture some of this enourmous amount of revenue? if you have more than one hotel in Brussels, are you working together to accommodate the bigger pieces of group business?

Using The Conference Bench, you should see what kind of a slice of this pie you are getting!  If you are not participating, and wish to do so on a trial basis either in Brussels or another of our destinations, please drop us an e-mail at info@jwbench.com! We look forward to hearing from you!

May 2010 Data

(Please click picture to enlarge)
Please find above the total Revenue Per Available Square Meter (RevPAS), by daily average and Revenue Per Delegate (RPD), and detailed Occupancy for the month for our Maturing Destinations. Please leave us a comment if you would like more information.

New Destination - Doha, Qatar.

We are delighted to announce a new destination in The Conference Bench - Doha. This is a fantastic conference destination, with a very strong competitive market place, and we are very pleased to welcome the hotels in the area on board. We now have data for this market so look out for it in our May Data sendout.

More destinations coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

Are there any destinations you would like to see in The Conference Bench?  Leave us a comment below, and we will do our best to get it started! Wishing you all a great weekend!

Ash Cloud - Restoring Client Confidence in Conference & Group Bookings - The Solution?

After 2 months of Ash Cloud disruption, we have seen a lot of the hotels we deal with gain (from customers who extended their stay), and some lose (from groups & individuals that cancelled their bookings). Some of those that have lost business, they have been lucky enough to move these bookings into future months, but some of the very unlucky few’s clients have decided not to rebook, as the leadership of the booking company has become tentative and not keen to travel if they cannot get back to their home country easily.

In this morning’s E-Hotelier we see the Great Hotels Organisation launch its Ash Cloud Cancellation Policy. At a glance this is designed to re-enforce consumer confidence – the customer will not be charged for their hotel room, should their travel be affected by the Ash Cloud.

Given the harsh cancellation policies that are usually attached to most larger conference bookings – do you think the same strategy will work for Conference Bookings to restore confidence? It is all well and good to move a few bedroom bookings due to cancellations, but large conference business (and especially those bookings with a lot of rooms attached)?  We have been very impressed with the way the hotels we work with have adapted to the problem of the Ash Cloud – their flexibility deserves a lot of praise, but eventually it will have a knock on effect to budgeting and forecasting, with a lot of pressure being put on the busiest part of the year to deliver the lost revenue.  Where does this flexibility end?  On the client side – Have you started to see some of the more demanding clients request their own Ash Cloud clauses in contracts for big conference and group business?  How are the bigger conference agents handling this new blight on the business, in an already tough market?

Please comment below!

The Importance of Turndowns

As a busy conference office, you are probably turning down a lot of business that is coming through your doors. We have all been there - the enquiries that end up in no man’s land –  from those bookings that are good bookings but don’t quite fit Sales Strategy, to those great bookings that just don’t fit into your space, but would be perfect if you had some outside space for activities, to those events which are put out to every conceivable venue in 8 major cities by overzealous conference agents, that very rarely, if ever confirm. Also when you are really busy taking enquiries for meeting space, why would you want to take the time to put in bookings that are never going to take place, when you could be spending time on your existing clients?  ESPECIALLY those bookings that come from those overzealous conference agents; so many bookings and such a small amount confirm.

So here are some of the reasons why you should be entering your turndowns on property:

·         They provide an accurate  gauge as to your actual business level - You always feel busy, and like there are lots of enquiries are coming through, but how busy actually ARE you? Entering turndowns in to your systems will show the true level of enquiries coming in. Your GM might be thinking – do I keep the conference office open in these tough times? Well we only entered 40 bookings (actually had 180 in total with turndowns) this month – the phones must have been dead, do i really need a team of 4 for only 40 enquiries?

·         Data Tracking – for those venues that take a lot of conference agent bookings – how much are you tracking their business and conversion rate? When the Agent is crying out for more commission, you will have some hard statistics to back up any negotiation you might have with them.

·         Data Tracking – The above goes for corporate clients. Got a corporate client that wants to drop their agreed room nights or rate as they have put a lot of conference business through the hotel, including lots of enquiries?  Get the true picture of their commitment to your property with the actual business AND the turndowns to show how much business the corporate client is putting through the hotel.

·         Existing clients – If you put in enough turndowns from one big client, they will eventually go elsewhere – keep an eye on those big producing accounts – sometimes it is worth taking a bad booking to keep them happy in the long run. Turndowns will help keep a track on the amount of business that these existing clients could be generating.

·         New client Tracking – got a company that is booking a lot, but is not a bedrooms client?  Soliciting new bedroom contracts can be made easy – Ie your company produced 400 room nights last year, and we had another 360 in turned down bookings from our group desk – let’s make a contract for 700 for next year at £xx rate.  

The above are just a few examples of the way in which turndowns can be utilised – there are many more – can you suggest anything else? Of if you have a success story you would like to share from analysing your turndown business?  Please comment below!