|
IAR E-News |
|||
|
.
|
Issue
16, July, 2002 A special e-mail newsletter of the International Association of Reservation Executives. IN THIS ISSUE
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Back to top Dear Members and Guests: I’m proud to be your newly elected President of IARE. I thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself and share my thoughts on where we’ve been and what’s next. I know I’m looking forward to the year ahead, because looking at this past year can be a bit troubling! My "day job" is to be the Vice President of Customer Communications for ANC Rental Corporation. That’s the parent company for National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car. In our three U.S. call centers, we handle all reservations, customer service and roadside assistance calls for our customers originating in North America. Although I’ve been in the travel industry, and specifically the car rental industry, for more than 23 years, I’ve only been involved in the call center part of the business for the last three. And what a three years it’s been! I’m sure many of you can relate to the consolidations, labor market changes, economic slowdown (and then speed up—and then slow down again), travel pattern changes, technology innovations and other fun we’ve been exposed to over the last few years. It’s in exactly this kind of environment that I find my membership in IARE the most valuable. How are my peers handling all this change? What new products and services are being offered to help my organization? How does my business fit into the entire travel picture? What’s next? These are the kinds of questions our association helps answer for me. And for the whole membership. To enhance these benefits even more, we are embarking on a membership drive this year to help bolster our ranks and bring in even more ideas and perspectives. Our membership committee has been working on a number of initiatives that I’m confident will result in a significant group of fresh faces at our 2003 conference in beautiful Seattle. On behalf of the entire board, we thank each of you for joining and participating in this very special organization. We’re grateful to the many members who are working on committees and donating their time, energy and experience to continue to build a valuable association. We’re looking forward to hearing from you during the year and seeing you soon. Best Regards, Keith Brender What's New with IARE? Back to top
Regional Meetings
are Underway! Perhaps the greatest value of IARE membership is the opportunity to share ideas and information with industry colleagues. With the IARE Regional Meeting concept, we're bringing the resources to your area so you can stay in touch and network on a regular and consistent basis. There are four meetings scheduled this year; tentative dates and locations are listed on the IARE's web site calendar. Based on the success of this series, IARE would like to expand the Regional Meeting concept to other areas of the continent in 2003. The first meeting is scheduled for Thursday, August 1st at Carlson Hospitality Worldwide in Omaha, Nebraska. The discussion topic for that meeting is Resource Planning. A special thanks to Erv Prince and IEX for sponsoring this first event. Seating will be limited, so please register on-line at http://www.iare.com/calendar.htm If you have a specific subject to discuss at an upcoming meeting or are interested in hosting an IARE Regional Meeting, please contact the IARE office at iare@assnoffice.com.
IARE Electronic
Bulletin Board The Bulletin Board was designed to allow IARE members to solicit input and share ideas with other members through our web site. To access the Bulletin Board, simply log-on to the Members Only section of the IARE web site and click on Bulletin Board. Your statement or inquiry will be posted immediately and remain there for approximately 60 days. IARE will send periodic email reminders to alert you when new messages are posted. Eventually, we hope that you will use this resource frequently to ask questions and exchange ideas. We hope you enjoy these new benefits of IARE membership! 2002 Conference Summary Back to top IARE's 17th
Annual Conference and Exhibition What do 92 people, from 52 different companies, 22 states, and two Canadian Provinces have in common? They all attended the IARE 17th Annual Conference and Exhibition in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.! Thanks to all who participated in making this years conference a huge success! 23 respondents completed a conference evaluation summary, and we wanted to share some of the results with you. As you may have guessed our conglomeration is made up of a myriad of people with different levels of skills and experiences. Out of those that responded, 3 people had been in the travel/hospitality call center industry for less than 2 years; 4 people have 2-5 years experience; 4 fell in the 6-10 range; 6 had 10-19 years, and 6 people had 20+ years of stories to share! 43% of the respondents identified themselves as Executives, and 52% as Managers. The IARE staff scored high on the five-point scale in the areas of Access to conference/registration information (4.78), and ease of registration (4.77). Some comments passed on were, "Steffani and staff are absolutely incredible!" and, "Steffani and Michelle, as always-the greatest!". The Conference Facility section scored fairly with Hotel Location and Access (3.63), Service of Hotel Staff (3.3), Overnight Accommodations (3.28), and meeting rooms (3.71). Some comments shared were, "Hotel seems tired, not very well located", "Hotel understaffed in lounge and restaurants" and "Hotel’s location confused many since the signage was Radisson, but paperwork had no brand affiliation." Point taken and we’ll work on this in future conferences. The Call Center forum continues to be a favorite at the conference (4.68). "Call Center forum was great. Keith (Brender) did a great job." Some suggestions to improve this popular event were, "Make the forum the longest part, and reduce the workshops-get input and do only two workshops. Sharing information was the most beneficial," and "Send in discussion items for call center forum breakout session in advance; we wasted a lot of time building a long list." And of course the highest scores went to the social events! The Sunday Golf Tournament scored a 5.0, Chase of Charleston Event/Dinner a 4.56, Monday Networking Lunch a 4.45, and the Monday Reception 4.33. You told us the top 3 reasons for attending the conference (ranked in order of importance) were:
The top 3 issues that you face in your career/job right now are:
You also predicted that the top 3 issues that will affect the Travel/Hospitality Call Center Industry in the next two years are:
And to the question "What can IARE do to provide more value to you and your organization?," we received several suggestions to provide industry trends, economic trends, benchmarking data, etc. We also heard a few times that you would like to have more networking opportunities in the form of regional meetings. Your feedback is invaluable, and we are pleased to offer this years first Regional Meeting. The IARE's Midwest U.S. Regional meeting will be held on Thursday, August 1st, at the Carlson Hospitality Worldwide Reservation Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Future meetings are being planned in a region near you! Perhaps the best summation of the conference came at the end of the survey, under "General Comments". These final thoughts were shared, "Great conference. I think it’s the best yet." "Met new people and shared a lot of information. All very open to sharing. Glad I joined," and finally, "See you in Seattle!" IARE
18th Annual Conference & Exhibition The IARE's Conference Planning Committee is closing in on dates and a location for the 2003 Conference. A conference site inspection team will visit Seattle, Washington, next week to tour and negotiate with five prospective hotels who are in contention to host the 2003 Conference. Please watch your email and visit the IARE's web site for upcoming announcements. MEMBER PROFILE Back to top Fairmont
Hotels & Resorts Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is the largest operator of luxury hotels and resorts in North America, with a unique collection of world-class resorts and city center hotels. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts’ Global Reservation Centre, located in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, provides reservation services to their chain of 38 luxury Fairmont hotels in Canada, the United States, Bermuda, Barbados, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. The Centre performs a variety of other services from technical support, internet reservations’ support, tour wholesaler services, and management of their Fairmont President’s Club frequent guest stay marketing program. The Global Reservation Centre recently launched an advanced phone-routing system, leveraging Computer Telephony Integration, which speeds up the reservation process and converts more phone inquiries to reservations. The new system routes a call from a potential guest directly to a Reservation Sales Agent who is personally familiar with the particular hotel where the guest wishes to make a reservation. IARE MEMBER SURVEYS Back to top Technical Survey Responses will be collected
on-line until
Friday, August 30, 2002. Contact the IARE office to respond to the Technical Survey.
Membership
Committee Survey We need your help to build a list of individuals who may be interested in these services. Please take a few minutes to share the names of key personnel in the following departments
Please click on the link below, complete the form and submit electronically to the IARE office. This data will be used by IARE to identify prospective members and will not be released to other outside resources. Click here to respond to the Membership Survey
FOR MEMBERS ONLY Back to top Updating the Primary and
Associate Member List Please remember... the Members Only section of the IARE web site is designed as a valuable member benefit and is limited to only current IARE Members through a User Name and Password. IARE Members Only Section…
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
International Association of Reservation Executives
7853 East Arapahoe Court #2100, Centennial, Colorado 80112-1361 U.S.A.
Phone (303) 694-4728 Fax (303) 694-4869
iare@assnoffice.com
© 2002 -- International Association of Reservation Executives --
All rights reserved.
Last Edit 07/22/02