APEX to Study Rise in Room Block Poaching
April 1, 2014The Convention Industry Council (CIC)’s Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) initiative recently formed a new workgroup to tackle the issue of room block poaching. In the meetings industry, room block poaching refers to businesses that actively seek to recruit and/or divert event attendees away from official room blocks and move them to other hotel bookings.
Chaired by MaryAnne Bobrow of Bobrow Associates Inc. and Michael Dominguez of MGM Resorts International, the workgroup is the latest issue APEX is addressing in its commitment to develop best practices for professional meeting management.
The APEX Room Block Poaching Workgroup was formed to raise industry awareness on the impacts of poaching and to develop best practices, tools, resources and education to aid individual meeting professionals in managing and protecting room blocks.
“Hotel poaching or piracy is not new but seems to be on the rise and affecting meetings around the globe. In some instances a meeting’s management team may be unaware that rooms are being poached,” said MaryAnne Bobrow. “The stellar group of individuals that form this workgroup won’t be able to eliminate the practice, but we can develop awareness and best practices for minimizing its impact.”
Michael Dominguez noted that “industry professionals can expect the workgroup to produce the high quality content APEX is known for, whether it is in the form of research, how to guides, articles or education. Our first priority is research and data gathering, which will shape further work.”