Business Travel/Expert Profile

Expertise

My main area of expertise is in meeting and event planning. I can help answer questions on how to find the best hotel for a specific group, ways to make a group more attractive to a hotel so that they will offer better rates, and negotiation strategies for working with hotels. I can also give tips on items that are and are not standard in hotel contracts, although I am not an attorney. I am not as familiar with the specifics of food and beverage functions (i.e. how many appetizers would you need to order for a reception of 250 people?).

Experience in the area

I had been working as a hotel sales manager for 11 years when I decided to "jump the fence" and become a meeting planner myself. I feel that my background can be very helpful in the negotiation process because I know what the hotels look for when evaluating a potential piece of business.

What do you like about this subject?

I love the challenge of gathering the important information from a client and then going out to find the most appropriate property to meet their needs, and then negotiating a good match for the two.

What do you still hope to achieve/learn in this field?

Obviously continuous learning is always a goal. I would like expand my reputation as being an "expert" in meeting planning and increase my reach in helping facilitate communication between hotels and meeting planners.

Something interesting about this subject that others may not know:

There are a lot more elements to planning a meeting than most people think. One of the most common misconceptions is that a larger meeting is automatically more attractive to a hotel than a smaller one. This is not always the case!