eRFPs- Creating Efficiency and Improving Communication

The use of eRFPs (electronic Request for Proposals) to hotels and venues has many benefits. However, challenges have arisen due to mass distribution. These challenges include difficulties for hotels to respond to leads in a timely and complete manner and the declining probability of business materializing from those leads.

At the LA FUSE event, CIC APEX Committee member and President of Bondurant Consulting, Betsy Bondurant presented data and research from the APEX committee on how buyers and sellers can improve communications in order to develop a better buyer process for meetings and events specific to electronic Requests for Proposal (eRFP). 

In 2015 the APEX Committee in partnership with GBTA released a white paper identifying some of the pain points in the current process with the uptick in technology as well as offered some potential tweaks to increase efficiencies for both sides. 

Planners may be juggling unrealistic client requests such as - "Show me the availability of 10 venues in 5 cities" - without offering a clear direction of what they want potentially leading to hotelier sales staff having an overfull mailbox and many requests that have a low potential for turning into a client. This factored in with we are now in a sellers market makes it even more challenging. 

Download the White Paper

Download the Executive Summary