Piracy is alive and well in 2010, and I’m not talking about Jerry Bruckheimer’s latest box office hit. I’m talking about “group housing piracy,” or more specifically, the fly-by-night companies that poach the attendee and exhibitor lists of meeting planners across the events industry.
A “housing pirate” can be defined as any unauthorized room block marketing company that misleads or misrepresents its involvement in the housing process to a meeting’s attendees or exhibitors. That company is not authorized to represent the meeting group, but will acquire room blocks at the hotels around a conference either through wholesalers or even through the hotels themselves.
Meeting planners and their attendees face real damages when victimized by these companies. The most glaring example of damages comes in the form of attrition should these companies lure a large enough group of people away from your contracted block. However, other damages need to be factored in as well. Missed rooms not only increase your attrition exposure, but also have a negative impact on your complimentary rooms, upgrades, meeting space and other concessions.
You can take a number of important steps to help insulate your organization from housing piracy. Here are some best practices to follow:
- Protect your exhibitor and attendee lists by not exposing them to the public. If you must display this information, do so in a secure manner by requiring an existing registration or log-in to view the information.
- Place clear warnings on your meeting website that caution exhibitors and attendees about the dangers of doing business with companies not associated with your organization.
- Send out proactive e-mails informing your attendees and exhibitors of the approved booking channels available to them.
- Protect yourself through strong language within your hotel contracts. Clauses that define a lowest rate guarantee, the ability to conduct an audit and the right to apply rooms found in an audit to your block could all help protect you.
- Provide your exhibitors with protected sub-blocks within the main block to ensure that they will have access to rooms.
What should you do if you become a victim of housing piracy? All is not lost. However, you must take certain steps to quickly recover:
- Immediately have your attorney draft a “cease and desist” letter to be sent to the offending company.
- Notify your contracted hotels of the situation and request their assistance in assuring that they do not enable these companies with competing blocks of inventory.
- Send out a communication to all registered attendees informing them of what has happened. Provide them with the correct booking channels and remind them of the importance of booking within the approved block.
Housing pirates are not going away. In fact, the number of companies involved in these practices seems to be growing on a daily basis. This requires all of us in the meetings industry to be extra vigilant in our preparations for overcoming housing piracy if and when our meetings are targeted.
“Missed rooms not only increase your attrition exposure, but also have a negative impact on your concessions.” - Adam Briggs, Vice President of Housing & Registration (reprinted courtesy of ConferenceDirect Meeting Mentor; Summer 2010; Vol. 1, Issue 2)
** Don’t forget to check out the latest Summer Issue of Meeting Mentor Magazine, now available online! ** http://www.meetingmentormag.com
