Hotel Negotiating on Both Sides of the Fence

I recently finished a first-time Healthcare Conference in Philadelphia. Our client put together an excellent plan for the Conference but like many first time events, they over estimated the attendance and sleeping room block. The result was that the Conference was assessed a $20,000 attrition charge.

During our debriefing, I worked closely with the client to review the goals they accomplished this year and to evaluate the viability of their second Conference next year. Everyone agreed that the Conference was marketable, worthwhile and should be held again.

I put together a revised plan for the subsequent Conference and used the new plan to discuss rebooking with the hotel for next year. I worked hard to reconfigure the meeting for 2009 with a better agenda and a more efficient use of meeting space. I was able to negotiate a mutually beneficial deal for both the client and the hotel.

The new plan met both the needs of the client and the needs of the hotel. We designed a more efficient use of meeting space to help the hotel, to improve the flow of the program, to better support the needs of the Conference Sponsors and to meet the needs of the Conference attendees. The modified Conference plan worked well for the hotel and allowed the hotel to sell another group concurrently with our client’s conference to maximized the hotel’s revenues.

The new plan helped me to negotiate the following items for the client:

• A waiver on 80% of the 2008 Conference attrition charges
• A 10% discount on all F&B for next year, which is valued at $4,500
• Maximum cap increase of F&B menu pricing
• Reduction of exhibit hall cleaning fee in half
• Reduction of total room block for next year
• One staff room at 20% off the group rate
• Attrition if incurred, will be charged at the Group Rate and not at the Average Daily Hotel Rate
• Room rental savings
• Inclusion of non-competing group verbiage
• Improved Force Majeure clause

Negotiations are always more effective when you take the time to carefully learn what the most important issues are for both groups. Knowing this information to work ‘both sides of the fence’ makes it easy to negotiate the deal to make everyone happy.