ABT Educational Sessions are the guide to new opportunities

Educational sessions of the Russian Association of Business Travel (ABT) are unique programs aimed to promote and develop the hotel industry in Moscow and the regions of Russia.

During the Educational session hoteliers have an opportunity to establish new business contacts, to update knowledge received during the work and to get acquainted with world practices in the business travel industry.

All speakers of the event are practicing experts with many years of experience in the hotel industry. They know special aspects of working in the travel industry, the main principles corporate and event policy should be based on, nuances of booking and budgeting.

«ABT educational session is the best I can recommend to those who are only starting their career in the hotel business. Irina Bosshard is a person you can listen to all the time and after that you have a clear idea of what a real travel professional should be like. After you meet a person like that you have a great desire to grow professionally yourself», Akhtemir Akhtemirov from Hotel Grozny City notes.

The topics of educational sessions depend on the participants` demand and are the result of questionnaires. Seminars on the following topics «Sales in the hotel industry: search of new clients», «Sales in the hotel industry: sales and marketing plan», «Sales in the hotel industry. Corporate clients. What you should know to work efficiently» have already taken place.

«Intelligible, interesting and very informative are three main features of ABT’s educational sessions. I am very glad I have had an opportunity to attend two of them, and I would grade each of them as excellent. Events like that greatly contribute to MICE development in the regions and I hope that my colleagues will attend the next session», was the opinion of Vladimir Zorikov, representative of «Akhtuba» tourist complex at the event.

The first educational seminar «Sales in the hotel industry: search of new clients» took place on March 20th, 2013 in Moscow Hilton Leningradskaya Hotel. The speaker of the meeting was Irina Bosshard, Director of Business and Conference Hotel Attestation program. She spoke about the main directions of search for prospective clients, ways of obtaining information about them and setting priorities in the process of work to increase sales.

According to Ms Bosshard, «Many live by a code „out of sight — out of mind“ and stop keeping in touch with the company when the client drops off», she explains. «On the contrary, a constant reminder is necessary. It is also useful to communicate with your colleagues from the purchase department, they may find clients among their suppliers.» Trade chambers, reference books, exhibitions, search engines, social networks can be useful sources of information.

«New client sources, such as fairs or business centres, were used by us before. And the idea of working with trade chambers and associations is quite new», Anastasiya Kallo from the Moscow hotel «Aminevskaya» shares her impressions of the seminar.

The main recipe of success, when you are looking for new clients, is a complex approach, analysis of available information, prioritization and database keeping. «Put down what you did and when and what you are planning to do. Keep a list of all potential clients — this actually is strategic planning, it is a good help in your work», Ms Bosshard says.

The second session «Sales in the hotel industry: sales and marketing plan» took place on June 29th, 2013. The presentation prepared by Irina Bosshard continued the first session.

At the request of the participants, the main attention of the educational session was paid to the process of marketing plan development.

A marketing plan is rather team work. It is hard to answer questions like «Where are we now?», «Where should we be?» and «What is to be done to get there?» alone.

Literally, we can say that ABT educational sessions are unique.

«First of all, the advantage of meetings like that is the opportunity to acquire practical experience through communication with colleagues. Besides, educational sessions for hoteliers are a great opportunity to make a name», Vladimir Kuzichev, commercial director of «Vozdvizhenskoe» country park hotel remarks.

Tens of hotel industry participants from Moscow, Moscow region and nearby regions have visited the educational session «Sales in the hotel industry: sales and marketing plan».

According to Ms Bosshard, when she prepared the session, it was decided to focus on the very process of marketing plan elaboration, because after the previous educational session many hoteliers expressed a wish to get their staff members into this educational program.

Ms Bosshard stressed, that thorough work should precede marketing plan development, because it should correspond to strategic growth tasks and the hotel’s budget for the coming year. Before you start the work, you should analyze political, social, cultural, technological factors and the economic climate. Besides, it is important to point out key business segments and to find your target audience that can be interested in your product.

During ABT`s second Educational Session «Sales in the hotel industry. Corporate clients. What you should know to work efficiently» Irina Bosshard and the participants discussed the ways to make hotel stay more comfortable for business travellers, the details you should pay attention to when you accommodate business groups.

The participants were very much surprised to learn that companies and even individual business travellers have a big list of criteria when they choose a hotel, because often conclusion of a successful deal depends not only on the overall level of comfort, but also on high speed internet, good hotel location or on the presence of a business zone in the hotel.

According to the participants themselves, events like that are really very useful and allow not only to acquire new knowledge, but also to establish new partnership relations.

«ABT educational session is the best platform for discussion of urgent questions. Irina Bosshard is an excellent business trainer. She is always open to difficult situations and is ready to give several advice to solve any problem. Besides, ABT educational sessions give you a unique opportunity to keep up with the latest news from your colleagues and to discuss their experience. The educational session was so interesting that time passed very quickly!» Julia Nazarova from Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel noted.

Sofya Dukorskaya