Sales & Marketing

Jay Delerno

Then again, maybe it's just me.
Winter 2008

Jay Delerno
President
Revenue Source One
www.revenuesourceone.com

I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL meeting planner, but I play one on TV.

I’m joking, of course, but I did sit on the “other side of the desk” as a hotel sales person for over 20 years.  For this reason, I was pressed into service by my wife’s family to help plan their next family reunion.  All I needed to do was get online, submit a few RFPs, and presto… we’re set with a block of hotel rooms.  Sounds easy, right?  

I picked five hotels (names withheld to protect the guilty) and leaped into cyberspace.  After several bad e-mail addresses, an RFP tool that would only function with Internet Explorer (which I don’t use), and a faulty link that kept me from using the online RFP tool, I wondered… is it just me, or is this a common experience for real meeting planners? 

My curiosity got the best of me and I decided to do a test by submitting twenty-four identical RFPs and measuring the results. 

My Criteria

     •  Family reunion with 35 guest rooms, third weekend in July 2008.

Hotel types:

     •  Franchise and independent.

     •  Full and select service.

     •  Airport, suburban and resort.

Twenty-four RFPs:

     •  8 via property franchise web site.

     •  10 from the property web site using an RFP tool.

     •  6 directly to the property via an e-mail link on their web site.

My Results

     Response times for RFPs:

         Within 1 day          6

         1 – 2 days            4

         Over 2 days         2

         No response       12

Quality of the responses

     •  Four didn’t request my phone number.

     •  Five didn’t determine required room types.

     •  Five didn’t request my arrival / departure dates.

     •  Five didn’t determine meeting or F & B requirements.

     •  Seven property web sites contained non-working e-mail addresses or broken links.

My Conclusion

     •  For mysterious reasons, as many as half of all RFP’s are not being received or responded to. 

     •  Hotel response times can be improved and it helps to ask the planner all the right questions. 

     •  Overall, the maintenance of web site e-mail addresses, links and the RFP submission tools is poor.

Then again, maybe it’s just me. 

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