Hilton unveils new ‘Meetings For Free’ promo

Hilton Hotels Corporation (Hilton) in Asia Pacific has today launched a new industry first. Anyone making a bedroom booking before June 30, for any date in 2009, will be eligible to receive a complimentary day meetings package including meeting room facilities, refreshments and lunch. The offer extends across all Hilton Family hotel brands in Asia Pacific: Hilton, Conrad and Doubletree by Hilton.

‘Meetings for Free’ applies to any conference, training or sales event held at any one of the 47 Hilton Family hotels across 14 Asia Pacific countries, for meetings from as few as two to as many as 100 residential delegates. The promotion is open for bookings made during a limited period between April 15 and June 30, 2009, for events taking place throughout the year until December 31, 2009.

Hilton’s ‘Meetings for Free’ represents an inspired solution to one of the problems currently facing modern businesses – how to ensure effective business communications whilst meeting and travel budgets are being cut. The savings represented by ‘Meetings for Free’ will go some way to helping organisations to continue to meet offsite, enabling them to be stronger and more effective through the current challenging times.

Supporting Hilton’s belief that meetings matter, is some independent research commissioned by Hilton across Asia Pacific. This found that 77% of those surveyed believe that offsite meetings are a necessity not a luxury, 94% that meetings can build stronger business relationships and 91% that meetings build stronger bonds between teams.

Speaking about the Hilton’s ‘Meetings for Free’ promotion and associated survey findings, Vice President Sales and Marketing, Hilton Hotels Asia Pacific, Andrew Flack said, “The research illustrates that despite the current economic challenges, meetings still matter. Combined with our own experience of hosting meetings in our Hilton Family hotels across Asia Pacific, we see a change that rather than cutting out meetings to save costs, businesses are in fact changing the shape of the meetings they host.

“Increasingly we see a move towards smaller, more regular meetings in short haul destinations, instead of the larger meetings and congresses in long haul locations. This promotion is designed to specifically address this trend,” said Flack.

Meetings were also perceived to provide solutions to business problems, with 84% of people believing that meetings result in people feeling more inspired, than through other forms of communication, 85% stating that meetings are more likely to result in breakthrough thinking, and 82% that meetings can bring the best out of people when compared to other communication forms.Technology has provided new means of communication which can be used in place of a face to face meeting, and 82% of those questioned agreed that cost considerations and these improved technologies were now resulting in offsite meetings occurring less often. However 61% stated that they would rather work for an organisation that invested in regular offsite meetings.

Other insights that should inspire businesses to take this preference for meeting in person even more seriously, are the details of exactly what people do whilst on a conference call; 81% admitted to carrying on working, 81% check their emails, 75% have side conversations with colleagues, 35% visit the bathroom with their hand phone whilst on the call and 20% help themselves to an alcoholic drink.
Flack continues, “Given the trends we are now seeing regarding meetings, and as a long-standing partner for meeting organisers, we at Hilton felt it was time to play our own part to help organisations bring their people together, and by doing so be better equipped to respond to these challenging times. By providing ‘Meetings for Free’ we are not only offering a great deal, but in our own way making a contribution to the health of business across the region.”