Marketing Ensures Business Every Day

With 54 hotels in Benton and Washington counties competing for more than $63 million in annual market revenue, a good director of sales and a strong marketing plan can shift a hotel’s fortune.

Kevin Smith is general manager of the Holiday Inn Northwest Arkansas and Convention Center and the Hampton Inn and Suites, all of which are in Springdale. Smith said he conducted a nationwide search before he found his director of sales, Patrick Jennings.

Both hotels are owned by John Q. Hammons Hotels Inc. and their combined 2003 estimated room revenue was $7.58 million for a total of 308 rooms, or about 12 percent of 2003’s total estimate.

Jennings, who moved here from a job at Disney’s Celebration Hotel in Orlando, Fla., has a staff of eight marketing and catering professionals, whereas most hotels have a single director of sales.

The hotels’ combined conference and meeting space is 48,300 SF, greater than any other existing lodging group in the two-county area.

Jennings said there are three segments hotel sales directors generally focus on to attract business:

• corporations, for business travel and conferences;

• associations, such as sporting or civic associations;

• the all-important SMERF segment: social/sports, military, education, reunion and fraternal.

Jennings has a specialist for each segment who is responsible for relating industry trends to the local area, then developing relationships with key decision makers.

The Holiday Inn gets virtually all the business for visiting competitors to the University of Arkansas sports teams, he said, but it hasn’t always been that way. Jennings said the sales manager for his SMERF team, Rebecca Harrison, spent three to four years developing relationships with people at the UA before getting them to try the Holiday Inn.

Coaches were hesitant because the hotel is in Springdale, he said, but now the word has gotten around the circuit.

“The coaches all know each other and they call for references,” Jennings said.

And now more than ever before the Holiday Inn relies on its sales staff. Jennings said the inn’s business has changed slightly, due to the location of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill.

He said the hotel used to have about 55 percent transient, or Monday through Thursday business occupancy, and about 45 percent group, or one-time event and weekend occupancy. Those numbers have just about flip-flopped, he said, giving he Holiday Inn about 55 percent of group bookings that make up its annual revenue.

Jennings said an average-sized, three-day group event can bring in about $100,000 in room revenue combined from the Hampton Inn and the Holiday Inn. The catering take can be up to $200,000.

The Embassy Suites in Rogers, also owned by John Q. Hammons, has a large sales staff, too. But Jennings said the hotels work together to avoid competing for the same business.

Joey Hunter, assistant general manager of the Hampton Inn in Rogers, owned by Raymond Management Co, said his 122-room location can generate about $18,000-$ 21,000 over a three-day event span and an average of between $10,000-$15,000 any weekday.

Hunter said his Hampton Inn does a lot of advertising in Arkansas tourism guides and by “going to where the action is” by getting the hotel’s logo on event signage. He said that tactic may not help the hotel one year, but it may the next.

The Hampton Inn of Rogers is currently looking for a director of sales Hunter said.