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Hotel Association Fails to Get Support for Call CenterTuesday, May 17, 2011 The local destination marketing committee opted not to help the Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association save its local call center Monday night. The WHMA has run its call center, which offers local assistance to visitors with questions about the area, for about 35 years. Since the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee decided in 2009 to stop using the WHMA as its booking engine, the WHMA has struggled to fund this service. Monday night WADMC members chose not to accept WHMA’s offer to hand over its website - GoWilliamsburg.com - in return for about $200,000 a year to maintain the call center. WADMC also decided not to allow the WHMA to use its booking engine, which would have helped the WHMA reduce expenses (read a previous, in-depth story on the background leading up to the decision here).WADMC Members 2011
Billy Scruggs, President Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association The WHMA (which has a seat at the WADMC table) and other members of WADMC have had a rocky relationship in the past, which came to a head in 2009 when WADMC decided to use California-based ARES as the booking engine for the Triangle’s destination website, VisitWilliamsburg.com. This caused the WHMA to lose about two-thirds of the destination’s business and made it impossible to keep the call center running indefinitely. The WHMA was ready recently to sign a contract to switch to using ARES as its primary booking engine, too, in order to save money by streamlining its booking process while getting national exposure. In April, though, ARES contacted WADMC to get the okay before agreeing to work with the WHMA. WADMC’s marketing group MRTF (the Marketing Resource Task Force) spent the last month examining two issues: how an ARES contract with the WHMA would affect WADMC, and whether a merger of the two groups would be a good idea. MRTF Chairman Robin Carson, of Kingsmill, told WADMC members Monday that a portion of ARES’ commission collected through rooms booked through WADMC’s website is reinvested in WADMC’s marketing campaign. That amounted to about $45,000 in 2010. Currently, all but 12 WHMA properties use ARES through the WADMC website. Should the WHMA sign a contract with ARES, this would split commissions for overlapping hotel properties and would cause an “unnecessary disadvantage” to WADMC. The language in the ARES contract with WADMC ensures “exclusive travel reservation services” between the two entities unless the committee chooses otherwise, which is why ARES asked for permission to work with the WHMA, according to MRTF. WADMC member Walt Zaremba, York County District 1 supervisor, seemed to support the WHMA position. “Why would we deny a major player in this industry to move from booking engine A to B? I don’t understand… we’re all in this together,” he said. WADMC member Phil Emerson, of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, pointed out that the WHMA had the chance to join with ARES two years ago, but chose not to do so. “The organizations chose to go down different paths… which I think is unfortunate,” he said. WADMC had to use ARES as a call center at that time due to the WHMA’s decision, according to Emerson. Of the eight voting members present Monday, all but WHMA President Billy Scruggs voted to follow MRTF’s suggestion not to allow ARES and the WHMA to work together. Zaremba chose to vote with the majority of other members, he told WYDaily after the meeting, because he had the impression from comments made at the meeting that the WHMA would only sign a contract with ARES if WADMC had agreed to support the call center. After WADMC’s April meeting when the ARES issue was first discussed, the WHMA offered to send all GoWilliamsburg.com website traffic to WADMC’s VisitWilliamsburg.com site in return for allowing its call center to become the only Triangle call center. Currently, ARES has a call center based in California that serves WADMC’s clients. The problem with this proposed scenario, according to MRTF, is that it would cost WADMC about $210,000 a year to support the WHMA call center. WADMC’s budget - funded largely through a $2 per night, per room tax on all hotels and motels in the Historic Triangle - is roughly $3 million per year, so the funds would be a significant percentage of that amount. Also, WADMC would lose the annual $45,000 commission reinvestment it receives from ARES. Carson said the idea was originally "very palatable to MRTF” because it would mean “one URL, one booking engine, one call center, one destination voice… and one focus.” The group was excited about the idea until they looked at the costs associated with funding the call center. WADMC member John Bacon pointed out that so far WADMC has been satisfied with the ARES call center, and “we have no evidence of [customer] dissatisfaction or poor service.” WADMC needs to use as much money as possible for marketing purposes, he said, so “why we would choose to give up $200,000 is hard for me to understand.” The WHMA has about 3,000 annual reservations that generate about $1.12 million in revenues to bring to the table, based on figures provided by Carson. Scruggs and WHMA Executive Director Priscilla Caldwell argued the WHMA’s site would generate more funds for WADMC and would help to offset the cost of supporting the call center. They also pointed out that ARES would likely significantly reduce the commission it charges if it no longer had to staff a call center for Williamsburg, which would also defray some of the cost. The WHMA’s bid to join forces failed Monday night after lengthy discussion, with all but Scruggs voting to follow MRTF’s suggestion not to accept the plan. The WHMA was also unable to get funding support for the call center from any of the three Triangle localities in the most recent budget cycle. After Monday night’s failure to get support from WADMC, the future of the call center is unclear, Scruggs and Caldwell said Monday. The organization only has funds to continue operations for a few more months. Should the call center fold, the Tourist Information Center will remain open as it has its own funding stream, Caldwell said after the meeting. |
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Comments
"Be the change that you want to see in the World!"
Unfortunately, WHMA wants to overpower the Williamsbvurg Chaqmber as the controlling factor of the City's ecomony. All shoulod work as a team. The chamber is making great progress in lkeeping "the world" informed. Lets us not confuse the tourist of having three areas to visit for information:WHM A, the Chaqmber and CW's visitor center. It all sounds like a giant pinball machine where the pinball is just bounching around. Lets get tourism together in one solid package.
This is all about power and ego. The powers that be do not want the WHMA around and have decided to oppose anything that might benefit that organization in an effort to try and limit the voice and influence of those entreprenuers.
The telling part of this story is the pending contract with ARES. Even if WADMC does not help support the local call center, there is no reason why WADMC should not get out of the way of the WHMA's effort to use ARES as it's primary booking engine. The vote by WADMC to somehow deny WHMA to enter into an agreement with ARES borders on restraint of trade, and if these discussions occurred at HTC there may be an anti-trust issue as well.
The good news is that there will be elections this fall and next spring. Area residents have the opportunity to make the changes needed to start fresh. I have heard a lot of talk about voting out all of the incumbents that are up for re-election and bringing in a new era of common sense and actual democracy. I support that idea and would welcome anything that flies in the face of backroom deals, cronyism, and the good ole boy & girl network.
WE CAN DO THIS PEOPLE!