As unusual business years go, it would be hard to top the one just wrapped up at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center.
In May, floodwaters swamped its lobbies, atriums and meeting spaces. The hotel collected around $50 million from its insurers, dropped another $150 million of its own funds into renovations, furloughed most of its employees and prepared to take a six-month hit to its bottom line in terms of lost income.
In November, it reopened with millions of Christmas lights, big crowds and positive local and national media coverage.
But now that the buzz has died down, how goes the effort to market a $200 million, old-yet-new property to national, even international meeting planners, trade associations and other convention-related groups?
Pretty good, to hear the Gaylord folks tell it.
“We kept our sales team fully intact during the downtime when we were closed,” says Randy Miller, vice president of sales. “We continued to pursue two areas of business: large conventions, the groups of 2,000 to 5,000 people which is our real niche, and executive meetings, which are usually a few hundred people and 200 rooms or smaller, and act as fillers between the big blocks we book. We were able to keep bringing in both of those groups.”
Gaylord figures show more than 300,000 room nights have been booked for 2011. Analysts say that while the years-out nature of conventions mean that Gaylord’s bottom line won’t rise rapidly in the short term, landing this business now bodes well for the company in the coming years.
“[Gaylord] had good bookings through last summer, and bookings continue to be good,” says Tim Wengerd, a research associate for Deutsche Bank Securities LLC, which follows the company. “There was a risk to the relaunch in that no one wants to be the first one to try a property out, but as the next year comes and the property ages a bit, it should continue to do well.”
More to the point, Wengerd adds: “Booking rates for hotels have begun to tick up, and while the convention market is going to lag, that will be good for Gaylord. What they have booked now, in the worst part of the recession, should give them more upside.
“Their [revenue per available room] will take longer to go up, but that will [help them] next year and into 2012 and beyond because their bookings are done so far in advance.”
Larger conventions book three years or more ahead, but smaller, executive-retreat style groups tend to snag a block of rooms within 30 to 90 days of the dates needed, so there were two ongoing goals during the shutdown:
- Make sure meeting planners knew the hotel would be up and running by year’s end
- Embark on a publicity blitz to ensure the business-travel community in general was aware of the reopening as well.
Gaylord’s sales team also was tasked with making sure both existing and potential clients were well informed about renovations and upgrades the property would be receiving as a part of the overhaul, Miller says. That meant bringing meeting-industry professionals to the reopened property for a free stay and lots of face time.
“We did invite a lot of our customers that we have booked, or that we want to book and haven’t yet, to show them the new hotel,” Miller says. “And we have gotten leads, which means that there’s an interest there and people want to move forward with bookings. We have a lot of people taking a second look at us now.”
As the largest non-casino hotel in the country, the Gaylord Opryland has 2,881 rooms, 170 of which are suites. Tack about 600,000 square feet of configurable meeting space onto that, and add in the all-new feel of the place, and Miller says you get a compelling product for high-end groups that weren’t sold on the property before.
“Our strategy is to call back everybody we’ve talked to before who’s turned us down,” he says. “We work to get them in to see us. We want them to see our property and experience our ambiance, and we think doing so will get them booked. Before we might court them and buy them dinner in their town, but now we get them here.”
One recent visitor on hand for the grand reopening says the sales pitch is likely to work in the hotel’s favor both now and into the future.
“They took the extra time and money not to just restore, but to improve upon the product that they have,” says Deborah Sexton, president and chief executive officer of the Professional Convention Management Association.
Sexton predicts it will take some time for the hotel to recoup its massive investment, but an improving economy dovetailed with a strong marketing push should help things along going forward.
“It’s a unique facility, and Nashville is a destination town,” she says. “They did a very good job with the rebuild and the renovation, and that has created a very positive buzz. We’re seeing a lot of optimism in the convention market now, and Gaylord has positioned themselves very well to capitalize on that as the business begins to come back.”