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Creating an RFP
Planners should consider all of the day-to-day needs of the meeting, including meeting room and guest room requirements, food/beverage minimums and any special needs. Planners should make sure they ask all of the questions so they can do a side by side comparison.
When filling out the RFP form, include:
- Details about your organization
- Event Information and purpose
- Who attendees are
- Dates and if they are flexible
- Number of guest rooms and meeting space needed
- Special dietary needs and all food and beverage requirements
- Audio Visual requirements
- “Green” specifications
- Other- transportation costs, parking fees, renovations, etc
- Ask all of the suppliers these same questions
Many times planners only put about 50% of the information needed by hotels to decide if the property is right for the meeting, this often results in a phone call to the planner. Hotels encourage planners to be upfront with their needs and budget, often times the complete package is what the hotels are looking at and they can be flexible with specifics.
Hotels are also offering incredible extras for meeting planners. It use to be one comp room for each 50 sold, now it is one for 40, sometimes going even lower. Even though there are many “extras” available for planners, they need to be careful in asking for thing based on the business they are bringing to the hotel. Concessions should be dependent upon the needs of the group.
Here a few examples: Complimentary meeting space, Higher attrition allowance, complimentary one-hour reception, special rate for staff rooms, upgraded rooms, free parking, discounted internet rates.
Anything planners can keep onsite, will make the value greater for the hotel. Lastly, planners should remember to put a deadline on their RFP.
For comprehensive RFP samples, APEX (Accepted Practice Exchange) has many to choose from. Check out www.conventionindustry.org/apex/panels/RFPs.htm.
Source: Meetings & Conventions, March 2010
