Companies Meet Each Other at the Airport

The days when attending a corporate meeting also meant a chance to sightsee in a new city are dwindling as more business travelers find that airports, not cities, are their prime destinations.

Conferences at airport hotels are booming, and plenty of business is being done without anyone even having to pass through security.

Overall, “the meetings industry is coming back with a vengeance,” said Edwin Griffin, executive vice president of Meeting Professionals International in Dallas. After about three years of essentially flat growth, 41% of companies now say they expect to hold more meetings next year.

However, the nature of those meetings is changing.

“We have found a substantial increase in the use of airline club rooms,” Griffin said. “Airport hotel [meetings] are increasing strongly as well.”

The continued drive for efficiency is driving the changes, Griffin said. By holding a meeting at an airport, a company saves on cab fare and employee time, not to mention frustration levels. More meetings can be held in the one day, and there might even be a savings on local taxes if the airport is outside the city limits.

People are often frazzled or tired by the time they get from an airport to a meeting, which reduces productivity, Griffin said. “You can get a lot more accomplished in a positive mind-set.”

Indeed, one company requires that top-level managers without a lot of time meet near an airport, said Melissa Abernathy, a spokeswoman for American Express Travel Related Services Co.

“They do video-conferencing wherever they can, and when they can’t do video-conferencing, they will hold a meeting as close to the airport as possible,” she said.

“People have realized they [meetings] are a manageable cost,” said Ralph Henderson, vice president of American Express Travel Related Services. Before, many meeting sites were picked because someone had read about a nice location, he said. Now companies pick strategic destinations that minimize time and cost for attendees.

The trend is accelerating as hotel chains have invested heavily in their properties. Hilton, for example, spent $40 million remodeling its facility near O’Hare International Airport, and the hotel now hosts 600 meetings a month.

The reason is simple.

“There’s a need for speed,” said Ken Smith, manager of the O’Hare Hilton, now one of the country’s busiest airport hotels for meetings. “Airport properties all over are doing very well because of that.”

“The way things are today, people do not have the opportunity to just project [meeting arrangements] four to five months in advance,” Smith said. They need to be able to arrange them on almost a moment’s notice. “And they want to be able to fly in, do their business and fly out.” The O’Hare Hilton is connected to all four terminals, allowing passengers to walk to the hotel.

Between 60% and 75% of O’Hare’s meetings are booked less than 30 days in advance, Smith said. Most meetings at airports last one to two days.

“They come in Sunday night and they’re out by Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “They don’t mess around.”

The O’Hare Hilton has a conference floor with 43 meetings room. Roving house attendants with walkie-talkies will chase down missing presentations or whatever else attendees need. Meetings at the O’Hare Hilton have increased about 20% a year since 1993.

While Griffin noted that “more people are interested in holding meetings to accommodate everybody’s time and schedule,” that doesn’t always mean going to a hotel.

Airline clubs, which typically accommodate up to 10 people in a room with fax machines, white boards and other conference room equipment, lend themselves to “eyeball-to-eyeball skull sessions,” he said.

Club room and airport conference rooms are also especially suited to recruiting interviews, said American Express’ Henderson.

Many business travelers use the rooms to meet with clients or colleagues who may be traveling on to different destinations. One attorney, for example, schedules meetings with clients at a mutual hub airport when both he and the client are on unrelated business trips.

Still others fly in and out of the airport for a meeting in a single day.

The hub and spoke route structure, and the proliferation of airport meeting rooms, makes this more feasible than it was a few years ago, said meeting planners.

“We do indeed see that the club’s been an increasing place for people to conduct meetings because of the convenience,” said American Airlines spokesman Bill Dreslan. “The trend has been up.”

Members of American’s Admirals Club don’t have to be traveling themselves to book the rooms, he said. “The Chicago club is so popular we have to turn meetings business away.”

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For its part, United has recently upgraded many of its club rooms and noticed an increase in meetings use, said spokesman Tony Molinaro.

And at Delta’s Crown Room clubs, reservations for meetings space are more important than they were a few years ago, especially in the most popular business destinations, such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago, said spokesman Clay McConnell.

Demand has increased, he said. “It’s been on an upward climb for some time now.” Currently there is no charge for the rooms, although that may change in the near future, he said.

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All the action has not gone unnoticed by the airports themselves. Griffin anticipates airports will be doing more to accommodate business meetings in the near future. Airports that aren’t well-served by airline clubs or that don’t have major hotel facilities nearby will put in conference rooms of their own, he predicted. “Airports are becoming extremely entrepreneurial, and they are understanding the benefits of making business easier.”

Indeed, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, several on-site conference rooms have been getting increasing use. “We can’t get in to use them ourselves anymore,” said Gordon Wennerstrom, airport facilities manager.

LAX is currently doing a master plan to look at the overall use of the airport. Business centers will be part of that plan, said airport spokeswoman Nancy Niles.

While there is a trend toward putting more business centers in airports, the extent of those facilities is usually determined by what else is available nearby, she said. At LAX, for example, “we have every major chain within a quarter of a mile from here.”

And those airport chains continue to fill their conference rooms.

“I expect the trend to continue,” said Bob Dirks, vice president of marketing for Hilton in Los Angeles. “Today, in the ‘90s, everybody is crunched for time.”