04 Jun 09 How Meeting Planners Deal with Competition

Call it a work hazard or a part of the parcel, competition is unavoidable in a business scenario. Many times it may so happen that your competitors might be organizing a conference at the same day and in the same venue as you. This leads to a lot of confusion and unwanted chaos. You or your competitor might end up losing some valued customers who would not know where to go first or not even turn up for one of the events.

Another disadvantage of hosting an event at the same day as your competitor is the unnecessary comparisons between the two events that are bound to trigger up discussion among the attendees.

Nobody likes to share the same dates and venue with their respective competitors. However the good news is that there are many ways to avoid this unwanted and uncomfortable clash of dates, ensuring you of full attention from your attendees.

There is one thing that some businesses do- they wait for their competitors to come up with a date for their specific meetings, and then decide on a date that is earlier to that. It always helps to schedule your meetings earlier than your competitor’s, as and when possible. If it is not possible to know the exact date of your competitor’s event, and it so happens that both are on the same day, try and schedule yours earlier in the day. Having an event before everything else always helps get more attendees and also those attendees who arrive early for the second event.

Another thing to do would be to get into a contract with the hotel or conference centre to prohibit competitor companies from hosting events a certain number of days before and after your event.

It is possible that some hotels or event facility centers may not agree to such a clause, however most of them understand the importance of not having a competitor hovering around when your business needs all the attention and marketing.

Tags: Attendees, Business Scenario, Chaos, Clash, Competitor Companies, Confusion, Full Attention, Hotels, Marketing, Meeting Planners, Organizing A Conference, Venue, Work Hazard