11 Aug The Supplier Meeting
Here at Seven Events we like to keep up to date with what’s happening in the industry so attending the C&IT Agency Forum is always a couple of days that we look forward to during the summer. It’s a great chance to meet new suppliers, sit in on some interesting seminars and meet up with old friends in the process.
Having attended supplier meetings for the last 4 years at Seven Events I’ve met with more than my fair share of hotels, venues and destinations and it strikes me that most of them follow the same pattern.
I hear all about the number of bedrooms, square footage of the rooms and meeting space, how many meeting rooms they have, the fact that they have a gym and spa (for those of you in the industry you’ll know that neither us or our clients rarely have the chance to use either of them) and all of this is shown to me on the obligatory iPad.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like meeting suppliers. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be in the know with what’s out there and what we can offer our clients. However, I am waiting for the most inspiring supplier meeting.
Do something different. Stand out from the competition. If you do this I will remember you and your hotel and when I have an enquiry I will come to you first. The best example of this was a European Hotel group I met with back in October. I sat down at their desk and we played a game of pairs. Sounds simple, but it was fun.
Let’s face it, us event people are a competitive bunch so the need to win at pairs hasn’t changed much from when I was a child – the difference was every time I found a pair they told me an interesting fact about the property I found. They still get to tell me about their hotels, I remember them more than the other 15 people I saw that day and when I get an enquiry in their destinations I’ll think about them first. Simple!
So take note suppliers – when you come in and meet with us be different. We look forward to seeing what you come up with.