Site inspections are alive, well, and more important than ever before in the eyes of most industry experts.
Ed Netzhammer, managing director, Omni Dallas Hotel: “Very little difference in site inspections over the last four or five years.”
Kristin Delahunt, director of convention services, Atlanta CVB: “As many sites as ever. We did more than 100 inspections in 2014.”
Jeff Adam, director of global accounts, HelmsBriscoe: “Site inspections have not been cut back. As you elevate the importance of your event, you elevate the need to see the property in person.”
But in these times of tight budgets and even tighter schedules, the return on your site inspection investment has become a key metric. Veteran planner Joan Eisenstodt, CEO of Eisenstodt Associates, has a site inspection checklist that starts at about 250 items.
“If I want to know how clean a room is, I can’t do that virtually,” Eisenstodt says. “A hotel’s virtual tour won’t tell me if there is mold or an odor or if the air walls bleed sound during events. People think there are shortcuts to selecting sites and they end up buying something they know nothing about.”
At the same time, Eisenstodt says, planners routinely select sites without inspections. Experience with the property, the client and the group helps. Other planners can also offer tips on renovation, construction and other pitfalls properties may forget to mention.
“If your program is very consistent, very compact, has no off-site components, maybe you don’t need a site visit,” Delahunt says. “The more your program engages attendees, the more it depends on the experience, the more it extends beyond the four walls of a single property, the more you need a site inspection before you sign a contract.”
Convincing a client that you need to visit a site before signing can be tough. Rescuing a client who decides to sign first and visit later is even tougher.
“When we got to the site inspection, we noticed that construction had started on a very large building right across the street from our meeting rooms designated for the program,” says veteran planner Nola Conway, president of Global Destination Marketing. “The construction was extremely noisy and distracting and would continue throughout our program. After considerable lawyers’ fees, the hotel agreed to a partial refund and we negotiated a ‘hard hat’ theme during coffee breaks. Never sign a contract before a site inspection!”
Good advice, but it can be hard to follow in the current seller’s market. Hotel demand is likely to outstrip supply at least into 2018 and sales departments are pushing for early commitments. Waiting for a site inspection could mean losing your preferred dates and must-have rates.
Tech to the Rescue
Clients are pushing back, too. CVBs, suppliers and hotels are usually willing to cover most of the costs of a site inspection except airfares. That means most domestic site inspections can be completed for $1,000 or less. But that’s only if the planner and client can find the travel time. That’s where technology can help.
Almost every venue offers 360-degree virtual tours of ballrooms, public spaces, suites and other important areas. When was the last time you used those online assets?
“Everyone has diagrams, floor plans, photos and virtual tours on tap, but they are not used as much by planners as I would hope,” Netzhammer says. “A 360 virtual tour gives you an initial look at a property without ever leaving your office.”
Not taking that virtual tour puts the planner at a disadvantage, agrees April Anderson, director of sales, national accounts, for event management company Zentila. She believes a virtual tour can’t replace an in-person site inspection, but the virtual version can help planners identify properties that obviously don’t work.
PageBreak
“Using virtual tours as an initial screening can let you zero in on the two or three properties that might be right for you instead of looking at every property in town,” she says. “Technology allows you to waste less time with hotels that are clearly not right for your group.”
And a caveat. Virtual tours are sales tools. Like a carefully Photoshopped advertising photo, the flaws are invisible. If there is a bad seating position in the grand ballroom, the virtual tour won’t show it. You’ll never see the three-year subway construction project just outside the front door. And you won’t see many standard guest rooms.
“A personal tour is far better than a virtual tour,” says customer engagement expert Shawna Suckow, founder of SPIN, the world’s largest association of senior-level planners. “And a virtual tour is better than no tour at all. But there is no such thing as a bad virtual tour. Everything is perfectly lit and staged and managed. You are seeing what the sales department wants you to see, not what you need to see.”
The Next Virtual Steps
Netzhammer notes that one of the most effective ways to use a virtual tour is to walk the halls online while talking on the phone with the property sales team. Suckow stretches that concept. She has the salesperson walk the property during a Skype video call.
A Skype tour is not as complete as a personal visit, but asking for a closer look at an event venue or seeing a real walk from ballroom to breakout space gives a very different impression from the canned virtual tour. And it’s easy to ask to look at a standard guest room, the accommodation that most attendees will experience.
The same video-call concept can expand the reach of an in-person site. When the entire planning team can’t visit in person, the one who can travel uses video calls to walk the rest of the team through the visit virtually. In these times of virtual teams and virtual event management companies, a good video call is almost as good as being there in person.
There are currently three technologies that can create video phone walkthroughs: Skype, FaceTime and Google Hangouts. All three have strengths and weaknesses, Suckow says. FaceTime calls only work on Apple devices and Skype calls can be tough to record. Google Hangouts are most convenient for uploading walkthrough video to share later.
Sherry Parks, president of Corporate Planners Unlimited, pushes the video walkthrough a little further. In addition to phone video, she uses Google Glass to record, archive and share the entire site inspection with the client and other staff.
“If the client can’t accompany me to a site, they can see the property through my eyes, literally,” Parks says. “I try to wear Google Glass into every space as I see it. Even if you are not physically present, you can see sightlines, air walls, the flow of people, the way staff interact. You wouldn’t buy a new car online without ever driving or even seeing the actual model, so why would you buy hotel and event space without seeing it? Hoping that the salesperson is selling you the most appropriate space, sight unseen, is not the kind of risk that most planners can afford to take.”
Editor’s note: Google Glass was discontinued in its current form as this issue went to press, with Google reportedly now working on an updated version.
UPCOMING WEBINAR:
Destination and Site Selection and ADA Compliance - What Might You Miss?
Wednesday, April 29, 2015, at 1:00 p.m. EDT
