Skift Take
If hotels want to book more meetings and events, they need to know how to speak the specific industry language of the events and planners they’re working with.
When Aubrey Feeley plans a meeting, there's a lot more on her mind than just the banquet menu, whether the Wi-Fi works, or how much square footage she has to work with. Feeley is a meeting planner and project manager for HMP Communications, a Malvern, Pennsylvania-based company that plans and owns a variety of medical and pharmaceutical educational meetings.
As a medical meeting planner, she is required by law to adhere to a strict standard of regulations mandated by the federal Sunshine Act. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $1 million per year if she doesn't carefully track nearly every penny spent at every meeting she organizes. Needless to say, it's pretty serious business.
"A pharmaceutical meeting compared to any other meeting is just so drastically different," Feeley told Skift. "I have a true budget and I have to deal with these laws that regulate how much I can spend. I can't spend a penny more or less with that budget. Being able to deal with a sales staff that's super knowledgeable about that just gives you a sense of relief and lets you know you're in good hands."
Feeley feels that way about the Hilton Chicago Hotel, and that's largely helped by the fact that the hotel sales team knows exactly what she needs for her specific industry needs.
Three years ago, the combined sales and marketing team for the
