ABT educational sessions: from a marketing plan to corporate services

Tens of hotel industry participants from Moscow and regions of Russia attended educational session «Sales in the hotel industry: sales and marketing plan» which was organized by the Russian Association of Business Travel on September, 12th in Holiday Inn Lesnaya Hotel.

According to Irina Bosshard, director of ABT’s Business and Conference Hotels Attestation program and the speaker of the event, it was decided to focus solely on the process of marketing plan preparation. Thorough work should precede this document, 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. A good result is quite possible if the whole team draws up the marketing plan, because you can answer the questions «Where are we now?», «Where should we be?» and «What is to be done to get there?» only together.

On the next day, September 13th, the second part of ABT’s educational session — «Sales in the hotel industry. Corporate clients. What you should know to cooperate successfully» took place in Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya.

«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 the 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.

He was fully supported by Akhtemir Akhtemirov from Hotel Grozny City, «ABT’s 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 tourism professional should be like. After you meet a person like that you have a great desire to grow professionally yourself».

The session started from the greeting speech of Hilton Leningradskaya general manager Konstantin Goryainov. He wished the participants a fruitful educational session and spoke about the hotel’s work. Hilton Leningradskaya has progressed to a new stage: according to TripAdvisor the hotel has joined top ten Moscow hotels and has successfully passed the inspection of ABT’s Business and Conference Hotel Attestation program.

During the session 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.

«You should make it clear that business travellers travel on business and not for leisure. That is why a good desk in the room, good lights and a place for business meetings are more important for a business traveller, Ms Bosshard says. A business traveller does not often even unpack his suitcase. He does not just have time for it, so if a hotel is focused on business events, it should pay serious attention to its infrastructure».

During the educational session the participants learned how to manage business trip costs, specified the role of agents in corporate services and defined the main principles corporate and event policy should be based on. Many session participants took part in it to get acquainted with hotel booking platforms in particular.

«Active online hotel booking is only developing in Russia. My colleagues and I always try to keep up with the latest market trends, so when our director decided to attend this educational session, we were very glad. It is very important for us to get acquainted with RFP and to learn to put our new knowledge into practice» Elena Makarkina, «Milan» hotel representative said.

At the end of the session Ms Bosshard stressed the importance of the topic.

«In order for the hotel to gain popularity among business travellers, you should clearly understand what a certain eventual customer wants and what a company pays attention to in the first turn when it sends its employees on business trips. Balance of interests is a key factor of success. You should think more about your client, who he is, what processes take place in the market, study your product and find the right employees. And you will definitely succeed!»

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