Avoiding nasty 'summer surprises'

School’s out but it’s still business as usual for the vibrant meetings industry this summer. Well, you would think this to be the case but many suppliers to the meetings industry seem to have forgotten that even during the silly season, the show must go on.

Venues, hotels and destination management companies, to name just a few, seem to have fled the GCC for the summer leaving no one to look after the meetings sector.

MIME knows this for a fact having contacted several such suppliers this month for information on their products and services – that will be published to the region’s corporate planners (i.e. those making the buying decisions) - only to discover on many occasions that there is absolutely no one to take our calls.

Does this strategy apply to potential clients?

When a corporate giant, blue chip company or conglomerate is banging down your door to make a potentially lucrative booking, do you slam that door in their face?

To replace your sales and marketing managers and meetings planners with a secretary or worse, a voicemail or ‘out of office’ reply is simply not good enough.

There are clients out there that want to book meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions all year round and in this competitive environment, suppliers cannot afford to turn away business, particularly in this unprofessional manner.

We all need a summer holiday but when we do we should make contingency plans to ensure our organisations are deemed professional and what’s more, proactive, at all times.

The customer booking a top-end incentive to the Maldives with private jet travel and private island accommodation won’t call again if they are not dealt with by a meetings professional from your company.

Similarly, they’ll choose another hotel venue if the unqualified person left to answer the phones in the sales executive’s absence cannot cater to their needs.

No company can afford to turn away business in this competitive environment so next summer, make sure your organisation strikes a balance between work and pleasure.

Gemma Greenwood is the senior group editor of ITP Business' travel and hospitality magazines.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Nasty 'summer surprises'
Posted by Hombil, Muscat, Oman on Wednesday 23 July 2008 at 08:56 UAE time

I think it is a common sense and as a policy, organisations should not allow all their managers/executives to proceed on summer vacation! Looks like, it's a sign of complacency and lack of planning of the work schedules during the lean summer months.

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