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Buyers keep site control.

Article Excerpt
Most corporate meeting buyers have the authority within their companies to control the location of events, but half have not used it in the past year, according to an exclusive Meetings Monitor survey of 186 corporate meeting buyers.

Control over site selection has proved to be a cost-saving measure, buyers said, especially as hotel rates continue to rise and better deals can be found at secondtier and alternative properties.

Though 62 percent of respondents said they have the authority to override the destination proposed by the meeting sponsor, one-third of those said they have used their override authority for less than 24 percent of the total number of meetings. Only 5 percent of respondents said they overrule the sponsor's destination choice more than half of the time.

Jo Ann Gallardo, Round Rock, Texas-based hotel and meeting coordinator for Dell Inc., said control over site selection is part of a larger project to draft a meetings management policy.

"Unfortunately, we currently don't have those policies or guidelines in place. I'm working on a strategic meetings management project and we're close to a decision on what route...

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