Understanding Planners' Use of Meeting Facility Information

Abstract

For convention centers and hotel meeting facilities to be successful in attractingmeetings of businesses during the 1990s, they will need to understand how meetingplanners make decisions. To better understand meeting planners' decision-makingprocesses, this study used survey research to investigate how meeting planners useboth internal and external sources of information as well as what their preferencesare for receiving information about meeting facilities. Results indicated that personalsources of information, such as prior experience or the advice of others, dominatethe decision-making process. Furthermore, planners prefer personalized marketinginformation to less personalized forms of communication. Given these inclinations,facility marketers must develop campaigns to generate positive word-of-mouthmessages about their facilities in order to compete successfully.