In this market-driven world of incentives and concession, the meeting planner is in the seat of power. But power corrupts, as the saying goes, and there can be such a thing as too much of a good thing. Where does one draw the line?
Is it okay, for example, for a planner to pocket 10,000 frequent flyer miles based on booking business on behalf of a client? While in some cases it’s perfectly kosher, most planners are of the mind that such incentives ought best be avoided.
“There are properties we’ve seen that are going the avenue of offering things like double commissions,” says Karen Pendleton, executive vice president of sales and marketing for EMC Venues, which manages meeting and event facilities throughout the U.S. “Our view is that ethically they are not acceptable. But for somebody like us who works on behalf of the planner, we can work around that. We do not accept any concession or incentive on behalf of ourselves. Also, the seasoned meeting planner can cut through all that. It still comes down to the service and the delivery of that property. You still get what you pay for. We have to dig through the various offers and say, yes, the overall rate may be cheaper, but is my offering still the same?”
Buyer’s market though this may be, the leverage a planner has with a hotel is only as effective as the business being brought to the table. Economic conditions prevail on both sides of the equation, and a planner given carte blanche on one side of the supply side of the table may very well have her hands tied on the client side.
“Unless it’s a recession induced by oversupply with all other things being stable, we have a true buyer’s market,” says Robert Mandelbaum, director of research and information technology for PKF Consulting.
But this is coupled with a declining economy, and in these circumstances it really becomes a benefit only in as much as an organization can take advantage of it.
Terri Breining, president of Concepts Worldwide, concurs with the logic.
“It looks like a buyer’s market to me,” she says. “But it is not a free-fall buyer’s market. What we are seeing is that the meetings that can prove value are the ones that are being funded. It again gets back to ROI—an essential to meeting planning that we should be looking at anyway.”
Even so, she concedes, “We still have greater strength today than we did a few years ago.”
