Booking MICE For High Tech Clients In China

Cathy Yu is the administration manager at China Hewlett-Packard and is responsible for organizing the company's travel.

As an IT leader in China market, what's the most important factor when selecting hotel products?
Cost effectiveness (between rate and service) is the main point. It should match a department's cost accounting.

How do you choose hotels for MICE? What's the main factor?
Location – hotels that are near to HP's clients or our company. For MICE, rate, location and service are the key points.

Which hotel products and services urgently need improvement? And what would you like to say to hotel manager and sales directors?
Service, especially service on each tiny detail. Many hotels are unprofessional at sales and also have a high staff turnover. Most of these staff are weak in consistency and in long-term professional training; sometimes they know the hotel less than the clients do. For example, we met an unprofessional receptionist in one the international hotels in Beijing. It's so hard for her to see the monitor that she has to stoop down (her body was at an angle of 45 degrees), and her face almost touched the screen. Totally out of harmony to the hotel's star rating. A professional front desk receptionist should be smart, make eye contact with the client, and use no exaggerated gestures. Service and staff training are always the most important.

Being aware of the fundamentals and being professional are necessary attributes.

Which are your favorite hotels when you arrange company MICE events?
The St. Regis Hotel and JW Marriott Hotel Beijing are the hotels we cooperate with now. I prefer the attitude of their sales and management people. They always accept clients' requirements and do deeper communications. However some hotels, in nice locations, focus on rates first -how much can the client pay? It seems that they never regard service as more important than rates.

What do you think about our bilingual products, China Hospitality News and its website? Which department do you focus on more and why?
All the travel and hotel news does help a lot, for we can keep our knowledge up to date. The promotion department is very useful.

As we know, MICE products include not only ballrooms, facilities and simple services, but also exterior services as such training on outward bound in today's MICE sales package, how do you feel about this sales approach?
A one-stop-shop service is surely good for us, but they'd better make sure the exterior service is professional. I hope it is in the same grade as the hotel standard is.

Which information channel do you use when choosing hotel or MICE site?
The purchasing department runs an auditing program. The decisive information is collected from every HP staff member. We'll purchase the products according to their requirements and the client's location.