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the industry exec
Roger Dow Relationships, details & passion ROGER DOW is president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, the national umbrella organization representing all segments of the $770 billion U.S. travel and tourism industry. Prior to joining USTA, Roger rose through the ranks at Marriott International in a career that began as a summer lifeguard at Marriott’s sixth hotel and spanned 34 years to become senior VP, global and field sales.
The USTA recently commissioned a study designed to show the return on investment of U.S. business travel and meetings. The research, conducted by Oxford Economics, establishes the first clear link between business travel and business growth. According to the study, for every dollar invested in business travel, businesses experience an average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits. (The study is available at www.tia.org).
MPG Roger: Actually, there are three. First is Uncle George (LaBarre) who was an extraordinarily successful businessman. He moved in some high business circles and was friends with President Nixon. When I was kid, going to the car wash with Uncle George was an event. All the car wash guys knew him and he knew them by name. He had the ability to talk to the President of the United States and to someone who was washing his car with the same dignity and respect. From Uncle George, I learned the value of building relationships at every level. The second is Bill Marriott, Jr. He is tremendous at working on priorities. Mr. Marriott is a hands on CEO who’s not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. He pays attention to the details, gets involved and really gets things done. Last is Tom Peters. Tom is a successful author, business consultant and has become a good friend. I’ve learned from Tom the importance of being passionate about what you do. You can change how people think about something by the passion you have for the subject. With regards to the ROI of business travel and meetings, do you believe that the results of the Oxford study are accurate and, if so, won’t businesses return to their pre-recession levels of travel and meetings simply because it’s a good business decision? First, I definitely believe that the findings in the report are true. Because the market is so tough, I have taken every opportunity be out on the road with our board members and the industry movers and shakers. While most associations have been forced to cut staff and expenses, we have not cut one person from our team and have actually been able to grow the association. I think it’s because we are out there talking face-to-face with the people. We’re fighting a powerful force in business – when times are tough, CEOs make across the board budget cuts. Enlightened businesses, however, decide not to cut meetings and face-to-face travel because they know that’s how they can grow. What we are trying to do is to provide information that businesses can use to fuel their sales and meetings areas. One of our USTA board members shared the Oxford study with his CFO. After reading it, the CFO made sure that they were not cutting their travel budget too much. The value of meetings can’t always be measured in dollars and cents. Can you recall a meeting that you attended that may have caused a significant change in your life? There are two. It was in the mid eighties when I first heard Tom Peters speak. I saw this guy with so much energy and passion that I ended up building a relationship with Tom and working with him as a consultant. I just saw that this guy was looking at things differently and was so customer focused. Tom has had a huge influence on my life and that came from sitting in an audience at a meeting and listening to him speak. During my years with Marriott I probably had fifteen different jobs. I know that at least ten of those jobs came directly from someone that I met at a meeting. I was working at a hotel in LA and I ended up at a hotel in Chicago because I attended a Marriott sales meeting where I met the head of sales and marketing and the GM for a Chicago property. From a career standpoint, if you are not going to industry or company events, you are going to be severely hampered in your career development. What can we be doing to help build a stronger, more robust meetings industry? I believe that planners today have to bring a lot more to the table. The planner must ask a series of important questions. What are we trying to accomplish? What are our expected results? How do we build the program and the meeting’s content around the goals? What are the metrics that I can use to help us find out afterwards if we accomplished our goals? With every dollar having to be justifies today, the planner has to help the executive do that and find ways to measure that. Metrics, purpose and results are elements that today’s planner must include in their everyday vocabulary just as much as they include logistics, setup and attendance. What do you see in your crystal ball about the short-term future for meetings? I believe that there is tremendous pent-up demand for meetings. People have hunkered down and put off meetings but I’m hearing more and more that hotels are getting more inquiries – they’re just not getting the bookings. People are planning their events but they’re waiting to book them in the very short term. People want to have the meetings and they want to know the availability but they are holding off making the commitment. They are just not putting ink to paper for fear that more cuts may be on the horizon. I really believe we are on the cusp of corporate America getting back into the meetings business. They’ve been standing on the sidelines but as soon as they start getting the slightest confidence that our economy is turning around, the hotel community will begin seeing more short-term booking activity. |
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