Many groups and associations came to New York in the weeks and months immediately following the attacks out of a sense of community and patriotism. President and CEO of NYC & Company at the time, Cristyne Nicholas (now CEO of Nicholas & Lence Communications), firmly believes that it was the meetings and conventions industry that saved New York City. Along with her team, she made personal calls to all those groups meeting in the city in the future to try to convince them not to cancel. Groups planning to meet elsewhere were called as well to try to sway them to come to New York instead. Many groups were enthusiastic about showing their support for the city. It was these personal phone calls and relationships that made the difference, Nicholas says.

Busing Them In
The American Bus Association (ABA) was one association tapped by NYC & Co. "We represent bus and tour operators, and obviously New York City after Sept. 11 was very interested in rebuilding its tourism business," explains ABA President and CEO Peter Pantuso. As ABA's operator members provide motorcoach trips to more than 850 million passengers annually - more than commercial airlines and Amtrak combined - it's easy to understand why Pantuso says ABA was "an attractive target."

Although its meeting was booked in early 2002, the earliest the ABA could convene in New York City was January 2004. "It was a great opportunity for us," Pantuso said. "We had not thought about or planned on going to New York City, only because of the cost. We didn't think it was going to be affordable, but we knew it was a place we'd love to go if we ever had the opportunity. It was, without question, one of our best shows. It helped spring us that much further ahead in terms of our registration and participation, and we've continued to grow from there."

With about 2,700 attendees, ABA's meeting in New York City was up about 15 percent from the previous year. The group used multiple hotels, including the Marriott, Hilton, and Sheraton. Total room nights numbered more than 8,500. "It was great, everybody had a wonderful time. Some of them still talk about how cold it was … but with fond memories. Rockefeller Center was closed for us to skate there; stars from seven Broadway shows put on acts from plays for our group. It was a memorable conference and experience in many, many ways," Pantuso recalls.

Groups like the ABA were very important as "we had a need for people to come back to New York after the tragedy of Sept. 11," said Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels and current chairman of NYC & Co. "We needed them financially and we needed them emotionally. The whole notion of patriotic tourism that we've seen in the Gulf and New Orleans really started in New York immediately after Sept. 11. We salute many associations for coming to us in our time of need.

"But," Tisch continues (and it's a big "but"), "right now we're in an environment where New York City continues to be strong, thanks in large part to the travel and tourism industry. You just have to look at the numbers. You've got about 70,000 hotel rooms in New York City and last year the hotels in town ran about 85 percent occupancy."

For groups like the ABA, meeting in New York may only remain a fond memory. Pantuso has tried repeatedly to bring his group back to New York City, but to no avail. "We've tried to talk to NYC & Co. and others over the last couple of years, to try and plan it out. We're looking at dates around 2011, 2012, but the cost of coming back is just prohibitive now. While everyone was interested in the tour business after Sept. 11, there's not that level of interest any more. In fact, we've lost a number of members, hoteliers in particular, in New York, primarily because they are moving from a group tour format to more corporate business, because that business is there, and commands a much higher price," he said.

After Sept. 11, Pantuso says, "everybody came to the plate to help us." That included New York state tourism offices, the city, and local partners. "But obviously, all of the dynamics have changed. And all of the hotels are full. They're commanding great rates," Pantuso says. "It's good they're having a great period right now. I think the one thing that we would suggest is we are an industry also that can also fill holes and create opportunities for the future. And I think some of our members are disappointed. While the city wanted motorcoach and group tour business and have wanted it desperately in the past, because it drives a lot of the economy in the city with hundreds and hundreds of buses coming in for travel purposes every single day, they're a little disappointed that the city - and a lot of the hoteliers, in particular - are not being more supportive. When or if there is another downturn in the travel economy for any reason, I'm afraid [association groups] won't necessarily be there, the same way they were before."

Despite the fact that ABA meets in January, not a peak time of year, he still hasn't seen hoteliers come forward to say they want this business back now. "Because of the rates, and because many have moved more into the corporate direction in a lot of cases, and the city's so hot right now, they don't necessarily need or perceive the need for the group travel business," Pantuso acknowledges.

The Numbers Game
"The bottom line is corporate groups are outbidding associations, many that helped pull New York City out of Sept. 11," said Joel Dolci, CAE, president & CEO of the New York Society of Association Executives (NYSAE). "These groups did what they had to do in order to move their meetings to New York and there is a great deal involved in doing that. I was on the telephone after Sept. 11 asking groups to move their meetings to New York. Recently, I've heard from eight associations who tried to bring their meetings back to New York and were unsuccessful. They called me to complain. Revenue managers say, 'My hands are tied, there is nothing I can do.' It's all about numbers."

According to Dolci, one of the associations agreed to pay the rates that a corporate customer would pay, with one exception. "There was a final banquet, and the association and corporate group each had about 900 people. The corporate client agreed to pay $30 more for the dinner; so $30 X 900 = $27,000. The hotel made the decision to go with corporate. Based on each of them putting into the hotel gross the volume of about $2.2 million (three and-a-half to four-day stay, room rental of 700 rooms, and everything else that was involved), for $27,000 they picked the corporate client. And the vice president of sales and marketing couldn't do a bloody thing. It was the revenue manager who made the decision with the general manger, like $27,000 was gold. That, in my opinion, is pretty sick."

What's happening in New York City is a microcosm of what's going on in other first-tier cities, given the strength of corporate meetings, and the business and leisure traveler. "Group commitments in some of our larger properties have been reduced," says Susan Wall, vice president, convention development, NYC & Co. "When they used to give us 1,200 rooms for a group, they now give us 600-800 which thoroughly impacts our sell." Yet New York is an anomaly as well - because hotel room inventory is actually shrinking as more hotels convert sleeping rooms to residential units.

Dolci is clear when he says this isn't a New York City problem; it's a pattern throughout the industry. "I think the industry is setting itself up for a problem later," he says. "Association executives are not fools. When the economy goes south or god forbid we have another catastrophe, we'll come to the table with a 10-year contract [to get this year's rate for the next 10 years]. The relationships are just not there like they used to be. And when it comes to selling to associations, it's very, very important that you have the relationships because even I compete for my members' time; they just don't have enough of it." Dolci believes the hospitality industry isn't doing a good job of improving those relationships. "They're not teaching the up-and-coming executives just hired out of hotel management school," he says. "Instead, they're sitting them behind the desk and giving them a telephone and telling them, 'When it rings, you take the order … and you don't take orders from this group this week because they don't pay as much as another portion of the industry pays.' How do I know that happens? Because one of them told one of my members, 'Oh, we're not taking any business from associations in the next 45 days because the ROI is just not there the way it is with corporate.'"

Do Relationships No Longer Count?
When Convene asked planners in its most recent meetings market survey to name their top industry concern, strained industry relationships were most often cited. "Hotel salespeople are losing the hospitality mentality," summed up one planner. "They are so concerned with RevPAR and meeting financial goals as set forth by the owners of the hotel that they forget that this is a business relationship that will last well past the actual meeting being negotiated." Bjorn Hanson, lodging consultant for PriceWaterhouseCoopers, acknowledges, "In general, the hotel industry does request meeting planners have special understanding when the hotel industry is in a tough period of performance but often when the time comes for planners to ask for similar consideration, it is very difficult for the hotels to be flexible." Last year, the hotel industry had its highest occupancy in 10 years - 63.4 percent.

Peter Yesawich, chairman & CEO of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell (YPB&R), believes that relationships haven't become less important, but "that doesn't mean they don't become strained. The lodging community really works very hard to develop good relationships," he says. "It's more than just paying lip service to the idea of building relationships. The people that I know who are in sales organizations and do this for a living are very sincere in developing good customer relationships. I don't feel this is any kind of a disingenuous effort on their part. As prices keep rising it becomes more difficult and challenging to sell something and it absolutely strains those relationships."

Nicholas knows firsthand the importance of relationships in good times as well as in bad. "Ironically, in our present environment, where demand outweighs supply, relationships are even more important," she maintains. "A planner may be able to get the room block he or she needs if she has a relationship with a particular property or chain."

Jeff Fagan, CMP, CASE, director, national accounts, Marriott Global Sales Organization, agrees. "In associations, it's all about relationships," he says. "And [the current market] has caused us to become even closer because we're commiserating more, we're talking more, we're sharing best practices with each other. My phone rings more now. Planners want to pick my brain. I'm becoming more of a consultant than an order taker, so the relationship has become more important. They're asking me to help place their business and make it work in hard spots that used to be easy spots."

Fagan's advice to planners: Don't give up. "It takes more work this time. What they need to do is call their national account representative and ask for their help. We have relationships with the hotel and we can find out exactly what the hotel is looking for and what they need for that program to work, and we can share ideas that have been successful in placing other groups," he explained. "We're helping the planners educate their internal customers because their bosses don't quite understand what's going on either. So we're teaching planners how to become salespeople, to teach their people how to approach it from a different angle and be flexible."

"The issue of having trouble getting space is prevalent around the entire country," says Clint Wheeler, vice president of corporate programs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "I have fantastic relationships with presidents and CEOs of hospitality companies, but if the space is not there, the space is not there. Revenue managers are driving decisions. The bottom line is that hotel owners and revenue managers don't care what group it is, all they care about is heads in beds."

Wheeler notes that relationships go both ways. "After Sept. 11, many groups were taking the opportunity to renegotiate contracts because they knew they had hotels over a barrel and many hotels didn't have a choice but to give in. Companies, trade associations all over the country, took the opportunity to call hotels to cancel because they knew they could without penalties and there were no attrition issues. The hotels were extremely forgiving. People took advantage of the situation. We were saying, 'Stick to your contracts; do not cancel.' The Chamber did not cancel a single contract we had after Sept. 11; as a matter of fact we beefed up and did more."

How Low Can You Go?
For association planners, trying to get a hotel or destination to take their piece of business is akin to doing the Limbo, testing their flexibility. Fagan says he suggests to planners that if it is essential that the meeting take place in New York City and availability is an issue, then they're going to have to start considering such things as paying meeting room rental; shifting the pattern; increasing their F&B minimum; looking at their room-to-space ratio. All these things will help increase their chances of making this a better fit for the hotel, particularly those that are tight on space and availability, he says. With first-tier cities such as San Francisco, San Diego, New York, and Chicago being the hardest cities to get into right now, Fagan says, second-tier cities represent huge opportunities. "I'm booking a lot more now in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Louisville, Minneapolis, Portland, Memphis, Charlotte. Those places are taking off. They have the rates associations want to pay and the availability," he says.

"Clearly the strength of New York City may make it difficult for some associations to find the dates available that work for them," Tisch said. "We in New York City know we tend to be a bit expensive but if meeting planners are flexible with their dates, they should be able to find hotels that can work within their budgets."

"We certainly do want association business because they're always there for us, in good times or bad," Wall said.

"There's always group business especially in the association market because they have to have an annual meeting every year. It's in their by-laws, and they need to rotate across the United States to address all the membership. We don't want to ignore that market at all. But planners need to be more flexible so that we can help them. And hotels too would like certain arrival patterns. Things usually can be worked out if both sides are a little flexible."

How long will the current market last? New York City, at least, expects to open up more once the proposed Javits Convention Center expansion is complete, "and we can bring more groups into the city," said Wall. "We already have 13 groups on the books right now for the expanded Javits Center. There's also another project in the works, combining Piers 92 and 94 together as a moderately sized convention center. It will be approximately 400,000 square feet of exhibit space, as well as 30,000 to 50,000 square feet of meeting space. That should come on board by 2010 so that should help the city also as far as availability is concerned."

For the market as a whole, Fagan says, "The pendulum is eventually going to start swinging the other way, but I don't think there are any signs of it moving until late 2008 into 2009. There aren't a lot of new properties on the horizon, so supplies are going to be curtailed. Interest rates have been going up, too. We always gear our business after the airlines. When the business traveler is flying and the airlines are doing well, then we know we're right behind them and we're going to be doing well. If we see, all of a sudden, that the business traveler is not in the airline seats, then we've got to brace ourselves because that means expense budgets are getting cut and we're the next ones to get hit."

'Booking Smart'
The Growing Importance Of the Revenue Manager

Do revenue managers have more clout than in the past? Here's what several in the know had to say.

Jeff Fagan, CMP, CASE, director, national accounts, Marriott Global Sales Organization:
"Ten years ago a lot of deals were made with handshakes, and we didn't have the clauses for minimum revenue amounts. In the last five to seven years, the revenue manager is playing a much bigger role. The group business is being looked at more closely by revenue managers to make sure they are picking the best opportunities for their hotel. They're under increased pressure from the hotel's owners to maximize profits because after Sept. 11 - for three years - a lot of these hotels lost money.

"It used to be just a director of sales and marketing calling the shots. Now they're calling the shots with the revenue manager, who has a seat at the table. It's still a team decision, but there's a new member on the team. Before there was a director of reservations who was analyzing the room blocks and the mix of the business that was to come in. But now that's been ramped up to where they're analyzing more than just the room blocks and the mix of business. They're analyzing the transient, the group, the convention, the group food and beverage, room rental, AV, affiliate spending, sponsors … everything, the total mix. That's the difference between 10 or 15 years ago and today. They're looking at all these different revenue generators and seeing how it's affecting the hotel."

Susan Wall, vice president, convention development, NYC & Co. :
"After Sept. 11, we were desperately in need of group business. And groups backed us up. We had so many patriotic bookings because they wanted to show their support for New York. There were several industry conventions that moved their site, exchanged years, so they could bring their convention to New York so they could help us out economically and we'll never forget that.

"Back then, hotels were bending over backwards as far as rate negotiations were concerned. However as the economy has changed, occupancy is high, and rates have gone higher. The revenue managers have come into play, a new trend for the last five to 10 years. They weigh all the factors, in fact, for the hotels, they weigh the F&B and they'll ask the right questions of the meeting planner so they can see if the worth of the group outweighs transient business that would be turned away if they took the group. They have very sophisticated ways of measuring what a group - as opposed to what the transient business - would bear. We still aggressively go after the association market and the hotels, especially the bigger boxes, certainly do have interest in pursuing association meetings.

"However, the revenue manager has a lot more clout now, and they have a very strong direction from their hotel owners to grow bottom lines. I know there are a lot of hotel sales managers that are very frustrated because they spent years in relationship selling and now it's all about the bottom line. That's the nature of business wherever you go. We do all we can to make the perfect scenario for the client. We can't always do that depending on the response from the analysis of the revenue managers. And the general managers are looking to the revenue managers to make sure that they're booking smart."

Bob Gilbert, CHME, CHA, president and CEO, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI):
"The revenue manager has been around for a long time. It's only probably in the last five to 10 years that the role has evolved into a full-time position and become commonplace at the unit level of most hotels and resorts. And obviously when you have an awful lot of pressure dates, when hotels are forecasted to be sold out, the revenue manager - that analyst position - is going to play a more dominant role in helping make good business decisions.

"In most hotels, the revenue manager is part of the hotel's executive committee or management team. About half of revenue managers report to sales and marketing; half report to the hotel's general manager. The executive committee would typically be the general manager, director of sales and marketing, director of F&B, director of rooms division, controller, all the department heads, and then you would have the revenue manager. It's in the last five years that the revenue manager sits at that table now.

"More sales and marketing people are accountable to a higher degree for having to justify the reasons for taking [a piece of] business. When it comes down to having to choose Group A or Group B, that analysis of the business is the role of the revenue manager. The answer probably isn't that your business isn't good enough. It's we had to choose between Group A and Group B. The analysis says Group B is going to be more profitable, then the sales department and general manager have to value not only the relationship but they have to value that relationship between a couple of groups. In many situations they may make the decision to take the group with the stronger relationship or the group with the biggest revenue impact. That's going to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Revenue managers rarely make the actual decision; they are just an analyst in the whole picture.

"People may not like revenue managers when occupancy's forecasted to be high, but they love them when they've got flexibility in dates because that revenue manager is really going to help them find the best value period where they are probably going to get a better rate. That's where the revenue manager can be the meeting planner's best friend. I say that figuratively, because they're not actually going to meet the revenue manager. But the meeting planner should know enough about what the revenue manager's role is so that they can have an intelligent conversation with their sales and marketing representative and say, 'Hey, go ask the revenue manager if this date doesn't work, what dates can I get the best rate?' That's when the meeting planner begins to have a lot more control in terms of what they would like to see in a proposal or what kind of concessions they'd like the hotel to make."

The Whole Notion of Relationships

We asked Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, and co-chairman of the board and a member of the Office of the President of Loews Corporation, whether the meetings business is losing its footing, which is based on relationships. Tisch is also chairman of the Travel Business Roundtable and chairman of NYC & Co. Here's what he had to say:

"Relationships always are important in any business, but especially one that is so dependent on the service sector such as lodging. It has been proven many times that people want to do business with people they know and have a relationship with.

"The whole notion of relationships is very much what's behind the many [face-to-face] gatherings in our industry whether it be a trade show, a conference where you have suppliers and buyers our industry … they're based on relationships but also with a keen eye on the bottom line.

"Understand the hotels have to meet their budgets in a variety of different areas; they have budgets for the rooms, budgets for food and beverage. If the meeting planner brings a piece of business that not only can deliver the room count needed by the hotel but also can fill the catering space, that is going to be more meaningful and the hotel is going to be more willing to book that kind of business.

"[Planners] have to be realistic. Like everybody, hotels have budgets. They're going to want to work with the kind of groups that fit their booking patterns. There may need to some flexibility with dates, some flexibility in terms of on-property food and beverage.

"As long as everybody is up-front and honest and expresses their goals and objectives early on, these kind of relationships can lead to successful meetings and a profitable bottom line for the hotels.

"Our industry is one that is based on interpersonal relationships both on the meeting planner/hotel level and in terms of the service we offer at properties once a group is booked and their meeting is actually held. Even though there may be financial engineering and sophisticated booking engines now in place, it still comes down to the fact that the hotel business is based on personality, based on product, and these two disciplines must work together for hotels to be profitable and for meeting planners to have their goal of a successful gathering met."

When the Buyer Does the Selling

"I think association planners are realizing that if they if they need to use first-tier cities that are in high demand, they need to do their homework to capture the worth of their meetings," said Susan Wall, vice president, convention development, NYC & Co. "They should be tallying what F&B they do, not only in their group's organized meals, but what they spend in hotel outlets and convention center outlets; how much they paid for services on the trade show floor; how much weight they bring if it's a heavy exhibit … because that all comes into play as far as pricing is concerned. So if they're looking for concessions on room rate, the hotels or the convention center can re-evaluate the business on how much they bring as far as other revenue."

For Judy Wander, CMP, staff vice president, conventions & conferences, International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), it's not just doing homework, it's doing more of a 180. She says associations need to sell their meetings. "The 'light bulb moment' for me was that I, as a planner, with my planning team, needed to do a better job of marketing our piece of business. It's similar to when we started that whole shift in contracts becoming more businesslike, where planners needed to learn how to put together better contracts. To get beyond the handshake in that relationship, we needed to do due diligence with regard to developing model contracts that reflected our own business needs and balanced the direction where hotels are going.

"It was a paradigm shift for me in that planners being the buyers don't oftentimes look at having to sell their piece of business. We need to recognize that there's a lot of competition now for space and that if we are going to be successful in this market, we need to do a better job of selling.

"We are all faced with so much pressure to accomplish a lot in our day, that we use whatever tools are available to streamline our request for a piece of business, to do it faster and quicker, more of a cut-and-paste approach to getting these RFPs out. But I realized that we as a meeting planning team really needed to invest more time in the up-front selling of our business. How do we do that? Rather than send the abbreviated version, we need to make sure that our RFPs are much more comprehensive as to who ICSC is, the volume of business that we do, who are members are, our history … to bankroll on 50 years of being in the association world, our growth, and to put more of a marketing spin on the summary information that goes into the RFP. We need to be more successful at quantifying our history. In other words, after moving on from a meeting, to make sure that we're getting those post-convention reports, that we're capturing not only the F&B piece and room pickup, but that we try to quantify all of the ancillary business that we do, and that has not been easy.

"We haven't been lax in this regard; we just haven't had to demonstrate this before. So we need to invest some of our time and resources to rebuild that from a department team point of view, not necessarily meeting by meeting but to summarize it totally in terms of pure volume. With 250 meetings a year, that's a big task, but I think it will be well worth the investment of time."

Wander has also been more open to considering additional options and resources that ICSC might not have looked at in the past … including some luxury hotels, which as it turns out, have found some of ICSC's meetings are a good fit for them.

Additionally, Wander said her team is working on building better relationships with the CVBs. "We're looking to do whatever we can to build a competitive advantage. You certainly don't want to pit one planner against the other, that's not the atmosphere that we're looking to create. But it's about investing resources to focus more effort into this area, almost like business development, to recognize and market your group's assets."

It's All About Yield

Peter Yesawich, chairman & CEO of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell (YPB&R), whose agency tracks lifestyle trends that impact travel, said, "It's all about yield right now. It is the first time in about five years that hotel companies have been able to raise rates to any measurable degree because of demand and market reactivity, so as a result, the yield management function has become increasingly important."

This is compounded by the fact that more hotel companies have become public in the last decade. "You only need to take a look at the percentage of lodging inventory that really caters to meetings and conventions today versus 10 years ago and you'll see there is a higher concentration of ownership among the larger properties by public companies. As a result," Yesawich said, "there is far more pressure on quarterly earnings and the yield management function becomes very, very important. And the [yield management] systems are very sophisticated now. Most of the users are quite comfortable with them. They are a routine part of the business relationship."

Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, agrees. "There is more of a focus on public companies that have to report quarterly earnings in the lodging industry. We have evolved over the past decade or so from an industry built on independent properties and smaller operations to today where the big public company players are getting bigger through acquisitions and strategic alliances. So yes, there is a continued focus on the bottom line, but in our business it's also about relationships and delivering what you promised." Looking to the future, as long as the market remains buoyant, Yesawich said, "and that appears to be the case, some factors to keep an eye on are the presidential election and rising taxes. The only time we will see a change is if a significant change in demand occurs. That will come about as a result of more inventory, which doesn't seem to be happening, or if we have some serious economic problem, interest rates get out of control, inflation comes back, or god forbid there is another crisis. If demand drops, all these yield management systems get put in neutral. Then it's about how do you build the occupancy more. The value of these systems is greatest when the occupancies are rising, when there is more pressure in the pipeline. As long as you have pressure in the pipeline, those systems are going to be very important."

Turnover Troubles

OK, you've established a relationship with the sales director at a property and you're all set to bring your meeting there in a few years. You expect to continue working closely with your contact there so you are both on the same page by the time you get on site. But what happens if you never get the chance to build a relationship?

Gregg Marshall, CPMR, CSP, executive director of the Gift and Home Trade Association, was psyched to bring his group to Phoenix. Sunshine and outdoor activities, rugged mountain ranges and towering Saguaro cacti, rich native-American history interwoven with the mystique of the Old West … he highlighted all of the destination's attributes in the marketing campaign for his association's conference. Given the strength of the destination, he felt confident that this would be his association's best conference yet.

Marshall promised the sales director he worked with that his group would "underpromise and overdeliver." He was right. Although his room count was off one day of the conference, overall, it was double than what was in the original contract. He was shocked to learn that he was still being charged an attrition rate for not meeting his numbers on that one particular night.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. The entire conference was rife with problems, he says. The whole issue of F&B costs was another nightmare.

Marshall attributes all of these problems to the fact that no one from the resort made the effort to develop a lasting relationship with him.

"From the time I signed the contract to the time the program was held, I had two different salespeople and four different convention sales managers. It was like I always starting from square one, educating the new person I was assigned about my group and the goals of our conference," he said. Naturally, he will never use this hotel or the group it is part of again. He has told his colleagues the same.

His ill feelings do not carry over to the city of Phoenix. He is in the process of negotiating with hotels to possibly bring the Gift and Home Trade Association's 2009 conference back to the city.

Staff turnover at hotels is not a new issue. The amount of money a hotel loses when it is unable to retain staff can be staggering. For example, in a report from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research (CHR), professors Timothy Hinkin and Bruce Tracey calculated the cost of replacing front-desk associates. "The average cost of turnover at the front desk was 30 percent of salary, or an average dollar figure of nearly $5,900," said Hinkin. "That percentage figure was consistent across all market segments. Even more devastating than the loss of the employee was the loss of productivity among managers, supervisors, and co-workers. Participants said that co-workers lost 20 percent of their productivity for up to 16 days when a colleague left the front desk."

Marshall said he has learned the importance of relationships the hard way and will never make the same mistake again. Today, one of the first questions he asks during his site inspections is, "What's your staff turnover like?" 

5 Key Takeaways

1. Get a grip. Understand that revenue managers do play a bigger role in the decision whether to accept
your meeting, or book another group. Part of the reason: More hotel companies have become public in the last decade, putting far more pressure on quarterly earnings. The yield management function has become extremely important.

2. Work your relationships. If you work closely with the hotel's national account representative, you can gain insights into what you need to do to make your piece of business more attractive.

3. Wear a different hat. Yes, you're the buyer, but you need to sell your meeting. Do your homework. Provide your group's history, capture ancillary spend; paint a complete picture of your group's economic worth.

4. Be flexible. Be as open as possible to options you may have not considered before, including different types of venues, second-tier cities, different dates.

5. Be persistent, be patient. You may have to work harder to get what you want this time around, but rest assured, the industry is cyclical.