Worldwide survey on the handling of MICE inquiries in the hotel industry reveals disturbing findings showing that lack of responsiveness is widespread throughout the industry, with hotels missing out on significant potential MICE revenues. Whilst conference and event business has experienced an upswing since 2010 with more events and more participants, higher prices and increased budgets,…
Worldwide survey on the handling of MICE inquiries in the hotel industry reveals disturbing findings showing that lack of responsiveness is widespread throughout the industry, with hotels missing out on significant potential MICE revenues.
Whilst conference and event business has experienced an upswing since 2010 with more events and more participants, higher prices and increased budgets, optimism amongst hoteliers and MICE organisers is also increased over the previous year. However, the 2011 IFH Institute For Hospitality Management survey found that a great many hotels are missing out on much of these increases and business due to a lack of appropriate procedures and responsiveness to enquiries. The situation would appear to have worsened for various reasons since the 2008/09 downturn and: Put bluntly, too many hotels are literally leaving major amounts of money on the table by failing to have or supervise their MICE handling procedures.
In order to establish in which way and at what level inquiries are responded to in the event area, and ultimately how much turnover is generated, the IFH team for the area Quality Performance Benchmarking (mystery shopping) made a comprehensive set of attractive test MICE inquiries at the end of 2010 to 165 hotels in the 3-5 star category worldwide. The result, an overwhelming number of the hotels neither addressed the actual needs and requirements of the enquiry and in many cases did not even respond. Whether Amsterdam, Hong Kong or New York – with regard to personal communication with the customer, silence prevailed to a large degree.
The most important results at a glance:
– 30 percent of the 167 hotels that were sent inquires did not respond at all.
– Of the 117 hotels (70 percent) that responded to the inquiry, 85 percent did not speak nor attempt to personally contact the customers by phone to query or follow up on the response.
– Only 26 hotels (15 percent) provided a tailor-made offer oriented to the needs of the customer.
– 75 percent of all offers were merely “non-binding proposals” (i.e. prices and general proposals) although the details of the inquiry had been specifically worded.
– Only five hotels of a total of 167 were able to make a convincing offer and encourage the booking.
Tatiana is the news co-ordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes to monitor the hundrends of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skim the most important according to our strategy. She holds a Bachelor degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
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