Greg and I were fortunate enough to be asked to present at this year's Northwest Chapter of PCMA and MPIWSC's 9th Annual Meetings Industry Summit: The New Norm at The Conference Center here in Seattle. For those of our excellent attendees who asked so many good questions both during and after the session and who requested an electronic copy of our slides, and for those who would no doubt have attended had they known, here you go.
As the post title suggests, we discussed trends in group sales/event contract negotiations attributable to the "new norm," primarily, the economy and its attendant changes (AIG effect, any one?) from both the venue and the group perspective. We took a look at contracts we had seen in the last year or two, group and meeting publications and did a brief and entirely unscientific survey of some of our clients to see what new things, if any, they were seeing.
We also talked about what has not changed, namely, the basic positions from which each party negotiates and what their objectives are, as well as some of the most important provisions in any group contract.
Thanks again to Tom Norwalk of the SCVB for recommending us and PCMA and MPI for having us.
About the Editor
Greg Duff founded and chairs Foster Garvey’s national Hospitality, Travel & Tourism group. His practice largely focuses on operations-oriented matters faced by hospitality industry members, including sales and marketing, distribution and e-commerce, procurement and technology. Greg also serves as counsel and legal advisor to many of the hospitality industry’s associations and trade groups, including AH&LA, HFTP and HSMAI.