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Hotel Assoc. Call Center Struggles, Group Looks for HelpBy Desiree Parker Saturday, April 23, 2011 The Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association is ready to hold out the olive branch to other members of the local destination marketing committee, as long as they get some help keeping their local call center alive.The WHMA is willing to consider big changes to their booking engine, and possibly more, in order to protect the local call center that they feel is important to people who visit the Triangle. “The institutional memory and training for our staff at the call center is critical in helping the customer get the experience they want when they come here,” says WHMA Executive Director Priscilla Caldwell. Keeping the call center going, though, is proving to be tricky. Members of Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee (WADMC) and the WHMA (who have a seat at the table) have had a rocky relationship over the past several years. In 2009, WADMC decided it was in the best interest of the destination to no longer use the WHMA as the booking engine for the Triangle. That slashed WHMA’s bottom line and had the organization up in arms because the call center for WADMC site visitors was shifted to California. The WHMA had some major problems with its booking engine at the time - which it later fixed - one of the reasons cited by WADMC for the shift. Last year, the WHMA created the Greater Williamsburg Tourist Information Center, which some members of WADMC said would create confusion for visitors since Colonial Williamsburg already has a Visitor Center. None of the entities with seats at WADMC (including local governments) supported the move. After a year of working to find enough support to become recognized by the state and get highway signs and other perks, the Information Center recently succeeded in getting the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s approval. The WHMA now needs more money to keep its local call center going. All three localities rebuffed its request for funding this year. Now, the WHMA is waiting to hear a decision by WADMC on whether its new plans to switch booking engines can go forward – plans that could ultimately result in the WHMA turning over all its website visitors, email lists and more to WADMC in return for call center support. The call center lost significant commission revenues when WADMC shifted booking engines. About two-thirds of the destination’s business ended up going through California-based booking service Advanced Reservations Systems (ARES) used by WADMC, according to WHMA President Billy Scruggs. “This changed our income stream,” he said. “We continued our [call center] program, but it could not work over the long-term, so we started looking at other opportunities.” In order to continue to fund the call center, the organization deliberated and decided to pitch its current vendor and use ARES. This wasn’t an effort to follow WADMC, Scruggs sayid, but a way to save money by streamlining the booking process for the WHMA. ARES is able to load room inventory quickly and update automatically, which means it won’t have to be done manually by the WHMA and will save money. The organization has been talking to ARES for months to negotiate the deal. The WHMA had a contract in hand and ready to sign when ARES sent a letter to WADMC asking if this would jeopardize their relationship. According to Scruggs, the ARES representative working with the WHMA said that ARES’ relationship with WADMC wouldn’t matter to the WHMA contract. It’s similar to the way Cox handles multiple local businesses needs, explained Caldwell. At its meeting this week, though, WADMC discussed the issue and asked Chairman Jim Kennedy to call ARES and to get questions answered. “I believe there are concerns… about what the intent is here,” said Kennedy. “MRTF did lots of research for hotel data and more for ARES [for the WADMC contract]. If we let [WHMA] use our database, can anyone use it?” The members of WADMC and MRTF (its marketing group) will send along a list of questions to Kennedy, and once he has a discussion with ARES he’ll report back to the group so they can vote. Meanwhile, the WHMA will need to wait. Conversation at Monday’s meeting ended up drifting to whether the WHMA would be merging websites with WADMC, according to Caldwell, which is something that the WHMA is considering. Making that change would require WADMC’s support. The WHMA board has not yet had a chance to officially discuss the idea since Monday when it was first broached, she said. Currently, the WHMA has the GoWilliamsburg.com website, which gets about 1.2 million visits a year and still books over $500,000 a year without any marketing. The WHMA maintains the call center for this site to help customers who want to speak to someone on the phone or via a live online chat. WADMC pushes its VisitWilliamsburg.com site, and pays ARES through commission for services such as its California-based call center. Scruggs says according to WADMC's data about 28 percent of local bookings are made through the ARES call center. In addition, MRTF has to train and update the California-based ARES staff so they know the area and can help people. When considering merging websites, “one consolidated effort would be in the best interests of the customer,” said Scruggs. Merging would involve the WHMA directing all its website visitors to the WADMC site (and likely giving WADMC its 45,000 customer email addresses). The WHMA would be amenable to the idea if its local call center would be the call center of choice, according to Scruggs and Caldwell. If ARES no longer had to handle a call center for Williamsburg, it would charge less commission. The WHMA would request that the difference in commission be used to fund the call center. Discussions haven’t gotten that far yet, though. Right now, says Scruggs, the ARES contract is just sitting on his desk, unsigned. |
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Comments
Is the goal of the two tourism groups to attract tourists and grow revenues which in turn helps the economic viability of our area or is the goal to build kingdoms.
If the first goal is true then the two should merge and take advantage of the economies of scale with the booking agent and the employee workforce. Perhaps the new group could even look at the idea of working with a Virginia based company to help put citizens in the Commonwealth to work versus California citizens. Nothing wrong with dealing with the company that best fits the bill but did anyone even look close to home? I wonder…
Once merged - create a separate chamber that can service the needs and concerns of businesses. Tourism is a big nut to crack and because of that the day to day business issues are lost if not forgotten.
While tourism is a big part of business here in the triangle it is by no means the only issue that businesses face.
History tells us that Tourism and Chamber should NOT be the focus of one organization.
While you make some interesting points in your comments, to suggest that the HTC get involved is dumbfounding. The HTC is a classic example of what NOT to do. It does not release any of its minutes, does not allow members of the community to attend meetings, and takes public tax dollars to fund itself. And this is a group who you would entrust to help bridge differences?!? Frankly, a closed group like the HTC is probably the last group I would engage. Since WHMA has had a change in leadership it has shown that it is willing to examine new courses of business. Half the equation is set. I guess that the other half of the equation would be the Alliance underataking a management shake up as well. Then maybe we can really start with a clean slate and have a productive and collaborative tourism entity for the community.
Colin has the best idea to date. Merge WHMA into the Alliance but only if it creates a separate Chamber of Commerce like in York County.
If we want to increase tourism income for the benefit of all the stakeholders of the area, all local destinations marketing organizations need to focus on delivering what the individual customer wants - not what the individual tourism entities feel they need.
Is there a destination marriage counselor in the house?
Are our tax dollars being spent to sell or to confuse the customer. Hard to tell from this article.
Are WADMC, WHMA and MRTF customer serving or self-serving organizations? Good question to ask the dwindling supply of vacationers.
Over the years and in prior WHMA administration, the topic of merging WHMA into a highly functional, integral part of the Alliance had been discussed. The question of WHMA’s existing business model and management approach to my knowledge has not changed in years. As we are now seeing, WHAM’s current approach to business, the market, their organization and investments, management, particularly in technology, are taxing the organization’s viability. Meanwhile, tourism, the market and community are evolving.
The concept of a strong Alliance Accommodations Committee is intriguing and potentially possible now with the open-mindedness and community-orien tation of the new WHMA President. The basic premise is that WHMA would merge into an Alliance subset…whatever form that would take. An Accommodations Committee would be a fair, balanced and representative cross-section of ALL accommodations providers…times hares, hotels, motels, campgrounds and B&Bs large and small.
The questions become; Is it practical from the Alliance side to absorb these assets and how will they fund them? If so, what assets should be retained and how would the merger look…call center, booking engine, staffing, magazine management, technology and, most importantly, governance? We have some expertise in just this category right here in town that is very familiar with both organizations.
Concurrently, this would offer an opportunity for a serious and concerted review of both organizations and their business, operating models, goals, measurements and objectives, etc. My sincere hope is that the Historic Triangle Collaborative would sponsor such an effort and apply their collective experience to enabling the collaboration that we all need for success. I would be happy to participate in such an endeavor and would wholeheartedly support the initiative.
Duplicity begets strife. We’ve had enough of that. It took a lot of courage for WHMA to make their current state a matter of public record. Now it is time to embrace a new approach. This community can no longer afford to waste time on issues that do not address our collective needs.