Miracle Workers

The definition of convention services manager, according to the Convention Industry Council, is a “professional at a hotel [or convention center or convention bureau] who is responsible for event operations management on all levels.” 
    But those few lines don’t convey the breadth of the roles these individuals often play in the events they oversee, roles that can range from hand-holder, sounding board, creative consultant, salesperson and, in the case of something going terribly wrong the day of the meeting, savior. As one CSM puts it, “We are mini-GMs for the meetings under our care.”
    To spotlight the many responsibilities of these often unsung hotel partners, M&C asked major hotel chains to put forward their very best CSMs, who are profiled in this special report. Here are their insights on making meetings work.

Melissa LaBarbera, CMP
Director of convention services
Fairmont Chicago
LaBarbera has been with the Fairmont Chicago for eight years and is the only director of convention services in 18 years to have a million-dollar month. (Yes, CSMs have revenue attached to their jobs.) She also has taken the hotel from 14th in the company to third place for J.D. Power and Associates’ client satisfaction scores. 
    This veteran has been a CSM for 22 years, but she did not set out for that position. In fact, LaBarbera’s first love is catering, but she switched positions when she realized, “I can wear nice clothes and not smell like onion.” Her department handles 500 meetings a year. Once the sales department has the business on the books, convention services takes over.
    After calling the planner to introduce herself and sending out all the pertinent information on items such as exhibits, production capabilities and menus, LaBarbera organizes the site inspection. Three months out, she works with the planner to coordinate housing lists, VIP lists, load-in for trade shows, etc. She also schedules pre-con and post-con meetings, and right before the event she gives planners a portfolio with the most recent group résumé, a phone list, a diagram of the meeting rooms and property, and copies of all the event orders. 
    “I make sure I am involved the day [attendees] arrive until the day they leave,” LaBarbera says. “Some hotels have ‘floor’ people who are on site at all times during the meeting. Here, we the CSMs are on the floor, right along with the banqueting team.” Ultimately, she adds, “It’s our job to make the planner look good.” 
    LaBarbera’s favorite part of the job: “I love working with somebody and seeing their project through from beginning to end. I could not be in sales and book the event and leave; I enjoy the follow-through.”

Michael Darst, CMP
Director of conference management and catering
Loews Miami Beach Hotel
It’s startling to hear someone say he’s going to put off his retirement plans because he loves his job too much. But Darst, just two years shy of his long-planned break from the hotel industry, is completely sincere when he says he wants to continue at his present position because the thrill of it has “been sustained over the years; it’s never diminished. The landscape changes daily and keeps me fresh.”
    The longest-serving CSM in the Loews hotel chain (he joined the company 23 years ago), Darst has been in his present position since the property opened in 1998. He oversees meetings  and still finds time to manage a host of social events for the Miami Beach community. 
    The biggest challenge of the job: guiding planners through the difficult decision of whether to hold an event outdoors or indoors. “We know how much a planner might want their event around the pool, but we try to convince them to design the party so that it can be moved indoors if the weather is bad,” Darst says. While the planner might be disappointed, he notes, the guests are not nearly as passionate about being outside; they just want a party. 
    “Planners may lose perspective, and we have to get them to see that it’s better to have a great party inside from the outset, rather than having the event start outside and get ruined by rain,” says Darst. In short: “We take away the emotion and deal with the facts.” 
    What Darst likes best about the job: “It’s very personal, whether we are producing a 1,000-person dinner for a company or a small birthday party for a 90-year-old,” he says. “It’s very rewarding to start something and then see it through to completion. I enjoy that sense of accomplishment.”

Brent Grimes, CMP
Convention services manager
Hyatt Regency Phoenix
Grimes has spent all of his working life in the hospitality industry, but he did not segue into the convention services niche until five years ago. It was a move made for love precipitated when he followed his future wife to Arizona but the change also made him realize his true professional calling.
Since 2000, Grimes has become a shining star in the Hyatt Hotels & Resorts chain. According to a spokesperson for the company, guest satisfaction scores for the CSM and his team are perfect. “He has a huge following of meeting planners. A planner panel Hyatt held this fall turned into a Brent Grimes love fest. Each panelist kept raving about Brent and cited him as an example of what to do.”
    The admiration is mutual. Grimes says he enjoys getting to know the planners he works with on a personal level during their collaborations. “I am speaking with planners for groups meeting here in 2007 now,” he notes. “They are surprised to hear from us, but I want to build rapport with them so they will feel comfortable asking me for whatever they need.”
    That comfort level can translate into a planner asking him for the OK on keeping a few rooms from their block until the last minute without penalty (see “Best Advice for Worst Mistakes,” page 58) or for more personal service, such as the planner who called on Grimes to assist her when she discovered, an hour before her gala, that her new gown had an anti-theft ink tag still attached. Grimes saved the day by borrowing a tag remover from the property’s gift shop. 
    Grimes’ ability to build relationships has benefited his team, as well. In one instance, he recalls, the hotel needed something from a group: extra rooms for one night. “We saw the planner was not going to meet her room block on that date, and we told her that if she gave us 40 rooms back, we wouldn’t charge her attrition.” 
    The best part of the job, says the busy CSM: “Being empowered to handle different situations, and, since there’s no manual for this position, learning on the job each day.”

David Johnson
Director of conference services
Four Seasons Resort Nevis
Caribbean resorts generally are models of laid-back demeanor, so planners often are stunned by the sense of urgency David Johnson’s team conveys when dealing with their various requests and other minutia at the Four Seasons in Nevis. But given Johnson’s background he was a planner for two years but decided to switch back to convention services when all the traveling became wearying it’s par the for course.
    Johnson’s CSM career began with the opening of the resort in 1992.  He found that although he was well-versed in catering and event management from previous positions in hotel catering departments, here he had to act as a destination management company, creative consultant and concierge to his clients, chiefly incentive planners. “The first year was a challenge,” he admits. “I had to ask a lot of questions of the planners I worked with and I learned a lot from them.”
    Among the many challenges Johnson faces: “It’s not unusual for us to find room amenities for participants when planners use the wrong shipper and the items they sent from the States don’t make it here on time,” he says. “We’ve had to do the pillow gifts on the fly for several four- or five-night trips. 
    “For a Molson event,” he continues, “the Canadian beer company’s own shipment did not make it here, so I sent a boat to St. Martin, a more than two-hour ride away, where my staff bought 30 cases of Molson so the beer distributors could have buckets of cold product in their rooms upon arrival.”
 

Lisa Russi, CMP
Director of meetings and conventions
San Francisco Hilton
This career CSM, named Hilton’s Director of Meetings & Conventions of the Year in 2004, has seen a distinct change in the roles her profession plays in the 500-plus meetings held annually at her property.
    “In the beginning, a CSM was viewed as a glorified on-site person,” she says. “Today, it’s more in the nature of a business relationship, where we act as the general manager of that group, basically serving as their go-to person here, recommending speakers and even helping them program their space.”
    When a group is in-house, the CSMs inevitably work a minimum of 16 hours per day. “We also stay in-house,” says Russi. “There is a permanent guest room set aside for us. We learned from our corporate clients that a lot of their best ideas happen at midnight, and they need someone there to implement them at any time.” 
    Her shining hour: “For a meeting that was jointly planned by a corporate planner, a third-party firm and an A/V firm, no one on the client side was taking charge,” Russi recalls. “We found out at 11 p.m. the night before the event was to start at 5 a.m., no less, that 70 percent of the meeting rooms were set up wrong. And that was just day one of a 10-day program. I took over the role of planner, since everyone else felt their hands were tied. It was my job to make them look good.”

BEST ADVICE FOR WORST MISTAKES

Convention services managers typically oversee myriad events and work with dozens of planners. The professionals profiled by M&C say they see clients make the same mistakes over and over, regardless of the size and purpose of the meeting. Following are the top planner missteps along with expert tips on how to avoid them.

Not enough turnaround time. Melissa LaBarbera, CMP, director of convention services at the Fairmont Chicago, says planners typically factor in 15 minutes between agenda items, which does not give the convention services staff adequate time to set up the room for the next session or function. Optimum time, she says, is two hours, but that’s not always realistic. A better solution: Allow at least a half-hour.

Missed marketing opportunities. Lisa Russi, CMP, director of meetings and conventions at the San Francisco Hilton, recommends asking CSMs for marketing ideas. “We have a lot of tools at our disposal we can personalize attendees’ televisions to include info on meetings and sponsors; we can have telephone operators answer attendees’ phones with a message or name, etc. Additionally, we can give you ideas for sponsorship opportunities we pick up so many from all the different meetings we handle.”
 
Inaccurate attendee counts for sessions. “Planners need to figure out how much they space they need for different sessions as soon as possible perhaps offering advance online sign-up so we can give them the correct size rooms,” says Russi. This not only helps hotels better manage their meeting space inventory, it gives planners an additional point of negotiation, as it can free up unused space for other events the hotel can sell.

Failure to share meeting history. It’s much better to show the hotel what the group’s spending patterns have been in the past; it will give you more leverage, Russi explains, because the property won’t feel like they are taking a chance with your group.

Late involvement of suppliers. Since many companies have preferred suppliers for services such as A/V, destination management and registration, Russi recommends bringing these partners in early and conducting a site inspection together before the event, so everyone can determine equipment needs, layout, etc.

Selling the last rooms from the block. Brent Grimes, CMP, convention services manager at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix, says planners always should hold a handful of rooms in their back pocket for last-minute snafus say, a board member who forgot to register. Says Grimes: “My job is to convey how tight we are during the days of the event and let you know when you need to release rooms.”
    If the property is not extremely busy at the the time of your meeting, Grimes says, releasing two weeks before the event is standard. When the hotel is busy, it might be just a week shy of the block cutoff date. “Some planners like to hold them up to the last second. They realize they will have to pay for them even if they end up not using them, but some are willing to take that chance,” notes Grimes.

Cutting site inspections short. Michael Darst, CMP, director of conference management and catering at Loews Miami Beach Hotel, advises planners to take several-day inspections, so they can get to know the city and its attractions, and meet with potential local partners to determine what resources are available at individual properties.
    While inspecting a property, “take some quiet time and walk the hotel by yourself, minus an entourage of hotel personnel or your staff, so it all cements in your mind,” recommends Darst. “Planners get so much information thrown at them during the inspections that they’re like deer caught in the headlights. But if they quietly take it in, the visuals can sink in, and good, specific questions come out from that time alone.” -- L.G.