Attributes Prioritized by meeting Planners When Choosing a Luxury Hotel for a Meeting

The literature reports that when selecting a meeting site, meeting planners look for quality service, meeting room facilities/quality, inventory, and hotel personnel (Upchurch, Jeong, Clements, & Jung 2000; Choi & Boger 2000; Lin & Lin 2013). The literature does not, however, provide detail on what a meeting planner looks for in a luxury setting or whether the needs are different. This paper looks to address this gap using a literature review along with in-person and telephone interviews with members of the sales/events staff in a luxury hotel to correlate or add to the knowledge about which services and expectations meeting planners have onsite for their groups at a luxury hotel. The attributes identified from the interviews suggest that longevity of staff, quality service, and the “creation of an experience” are key factors in attracting or maintaining corporate group clientele at luxury hotels. Keywords: Service, Luxury Hotel, Meeting Planners, Group Clientele, Corporate Groups