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Cos. try to avoid costly short-term mtgs.

Article Excerpt
Corporate meeting buyers this year face continued pressure from their companies to book meetings with short lead times, according to a new Meetings Today survey. However, buyers said hotel rates are rising rapidly and competition for rooms is heating up. To keep costs down, some buyers have been pushing to expedite tile planning process, either by signing multi-meeting contracts with preferred vendors or cutting services they used to offer.

Meeting consultants said buyers face dual pressure from their companies to shorten lead times and from hotels to lengthen them. As such, strategies such as consolidation, cultivating preferred vendors, control over site selection and the deployment data-tracking technology have become even more valuable to the sourcing process.

This year, 75 percent of respondents said lead times for their meetings of less than 100 attendees averaged less than 90 days, which showed that lead times have lengthened since a Meetings Monitor survey in March 2004 showed that 83 percent of such meetings were short-term (Meetings Today, March 29, 2004). However, many buyers said lead times continue to be too short and that their companies have become accustomed to planning events at the last minute. The majority of respondents, 84 percent, said they didn't expect lead times to change much this year, but 10 percent predicted their lead times would shorten.

Stephanie Ravensdale, director of corporate programs and events for Longmont, Colo.-based Intrado Inc., an integrated data and telecommunications solutions provider, said she tries to plan most of her meetings one year in advance, but receives "uncountable" requests for last-minute meetings, sometimes with only a few weeks' notice.

"Most planners today work in a firefighting mode. Certainly, I do," Ravensdale said. "Whatever comes along, it's my job, so I have to find a way to do it."

Ravensdale said she has seen higher rates and tougher negotiations in the past few months, depending on the property. Five-star...

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