Walnut Creek, CA.  January 23, 2007.  Major Kansas City hotels found their December 2006 meetings business increase 5.0% over the previous December, according to Hospitality Information Services (HIS), which tracks the meetings industry in 44 markets in the U.S. and Canada. 

The December 2006 HIS Monthly Market Summary for Kansas City showed that the �Ten Most Active Properties� recorded 534 unique organizations meeting in those hotels, compared to 509 such organizations in December 2005, an increase of  5.0%.

Leading the Ten Most Active hotels for December 2006 was the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza, with 14.6% of the Meetings Market share in that month.  The second leading hotel in the Ten Most Active was the Marriott Country Club Plaza, with 11.8% of the Meetings Market share in December.  

In December 2005, these same two �top ten� hotels were one-two for Meetings Market share, with the InterContinental holding a 19.3% share, and the Marriott an 11.8% share of the meetings market.

In third place among the Ten Most Active Properties was the Kansas City Marriott, which recorded a 10.7% Meetings Market share in December 2006, up from 10.6% in December 2005, according to the HIS Monthly Market Summaries for those periods.

Of the Ten Most Active Properties in the HIS survey, the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza outpaced all others in the total number of �Event Days� recorded in both Decembers, 233 and 247, respectively, for 2006 and 2005.  �Event Days� is the total of individual meetings or events held by the organizations using the hotel.  

Event Days are the bread-and-butter of hotel sales and catering managers.

His Monthly Market Summaries for Kansas City hotels show that the organizations accounting for the most event days in December 2006 were Union Pacific and Skillpath Seminars, with 8 and 6 Event Days, respectively.  In third place was Boomer Consulting, with 5.  

For General Managers and Directors of Sales & Marketing at Kansas City hotels, all this is crucial market intelligence.  

For over 17 years, Hospitality Information Services, Inc., based in Walnut Creek, CA, has been providing the hotel industry with competitive market information just like this -  revealing which companies and organizations are meeting� where� and for how long.  In addition, HIS also provides event contact information for the corporate or association people in charge of the events.

Since 1989, HIS has been the leader in the �Reader Board� business.  In fact, they invented the business, which was the brainchild of Stephen Reiser, who was working in the hotel industry in San Francisco at the time.  

Reiser�s business model is seemingly very straightforward � HIS associates visit specific hotels in a given market and capture the information on the hotels� reader board, that signboard or video screen in the lobby that announces who has booked the meeting rooms that day.  

�Over the years, Reiser says, �we�ve fine-tuned our system to provide exactly what our clients tell us they need - well-organized, meaningful, and fact-checked reports, including contact information.�
 
HIS analyzes, processes, and verifies the data for accuracy before it packages the information as a weekly, monthly, or quarterly report and sends it on to HIS subscribers, usually hotel GMs and sales directors.

HIS provides hotels with the intelligence they need to compete and increase market share in two important segments of their business � the group and catering market segments.  Currently, HIS gathers data from over 1,200 properties in more than 44 markets in the U.S. and Canada.

The Battle for Market Share � Yes it IS a War

�Hotel GMs and Directors of Sales know they can increase revenue and market share by moving meetings and catering business out of their competitors� properties and into their own.  They use HIS market intelligence to increase their top-line revenues,� says Reiser.

Hotel Executives constantly search for the weapons they need to increase market share:

�We measure the success of our Directors of Sales largely based upon their ability to consistently outperform their competitive set.  If our Directors of Sales focus on moving business out of their competitors and into their hotel, they can make incremental gains in market share achievement.  HIS provides the tools to achieve this objective,� says Rob Scypinski, Regional Vice President, Sales � Western Region, Hilton Hotels Corporation.

For more information on Hospitality Information Services and the data it provides, visit the web site at www.hisnet.com, or contact Joe Krings, HIS Director of Sales, (831)620-1361.