A Site of Their Own

Meetings & Conventions: Short Cuts September 2002 Current Issue
September 2002
Short Cuts:A Site of Their Own

Before bothering to disseminate meeting information to attendees, consider having the hotel do it for free, and within 48 hours. Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts (www.fourseasons.com), Radisson Hotels & Resorts (www.radisson.com) and Marriott International’s Mid-Atlantic region properties (www.midatlanticmeetings.com) all have begun to create customized, private Web sites for meetings clients.

These sites can include any items the planner wishes, such as the meeting agenda, travel logistics, speaker profiles, dress codes, recreational options and property photos. Planners can send all participants a blast e-mail with the relevant link, and the job of communicating meeting details is done. Toronto-based Four Seasons, which started its Web service in June, says the idea was sparked by request. “Planners were asking us for electronic photos of our properties, so we thought it would be better to build a whole site for them,” says Michael Hayward, director of marketing, planning and automation. “The sites are like electronic brochures. They help planners provide detailed information without having to build their own site for a meeting.”

Tim Law, the Bethesda, Md.-based director of marketing communications for Marriott’s Mid-Atlantic region and a technical whiz who designed and launched the Web site service for Marriott, says simplicity was the goal. “Customers were consistently asking us to make life easier for them,” he notes. The planner dictates the content of the site, and the rest is handled by the hotel company. “It’s the planner’s site,” he adds, “not ours.”

• TERENCE BAKER