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Ask any marketer - corporate hospitality is generally accepted as a key part of the marketing mix, an opportunity to relax with clients or suppliers, foster better relations and to say thank you. The buyers of corporate hospitality have a number of clear priorities when they organise such events. They want to use it to secure existing ties and drive sales and it is also increasingly being used as a tool to drive new business.
Sodexho Prestige has long been associated with some of the greatest events in the sporting and corporate hospitality calendar – Royal Ascot, The Vodafone Derby, Henley Royal Regatta, British Open Golf and Chelsea Flower Show to name but a few. The business offers expertise and flexibility in hospitality catering at social events, professional catering management at historic venues and leisure attractions, and the delivery of food services at race courses and sporting stadia.
In September 2003 Sodexho Prestige decided to look at the industry as a whole in a little more detail and subsequently commissioned NOP Business to conduct research into the area of corporate hospitality. It is the third time the company has undertaken such a survey, with previous surveys being carried out in 1998 and 2000. The result – The National Corporate Hospitality Survey – has identified a number of key changes in the way this form of marketing is viewed by businesses and customers alike.
While the proportion of hosts who target their existing customers has remained relatively stable in recent years at around the 90 per cent mark, the proportion who target potentially new customers has grown significantly. In 1998, 57 per cent of hosts said they invited potential customers, a figure that grew to 61 per cent in 2000 and to 78 per cent in the most recent survey. This shift in emphasisto using events as tools for generating new business has revolutionised the sector in recent years.
Sodexho Prestige’s sales and marketing director, Alastair Scott, has clear ideas on what motivates businesses to invest in corporate hospitality. “Our experience and research shows us that generally speaking people see corporate hospitality as just one of the ingredients in the marketing mix.
They want to build relationships with clients and they enjoy that informal opportunity to capitalise on the relationship that they have with their customers. If you pick the right sort of hospitality then obviously you’ve got time to sit and talk with the client, which isn’t always the case with a formal meeting.”
Traditionally it has been difficult to measure the return on investment of corporate hospitality, however, companies’ marketing generally has become much more measurement conscious in recent times. “If you are going to include hospitality in the marketing mix, then you do have to say ‘how do we think this entertaining has influenced clients?’ I am aware of companies who now look at the measurement of sales for a particular client and compare that to their spend on corporate hospitality,” he adds.
Along with this key shift in emphasis, Alastair also feels the locations that companies choose for events have evolved in recent years. “Although sport is still very attractive to people, increasingly cultural events and flower shows are seen to be productive as they offer more opportunity to chat to your customers.
In our experience, customers who buy the hospitality are very much in tune with the interests of their customers so they aren’t likely to take someone horse racing if they are passionate cricket fans. We find now that people are more keen to find out the personal interests of their clients and invite them to the appropriate event. Consequently horse racing and golf remain extremely popular.”
This belief is borne out in the National Corporate Hospitality Survey with the likes of art exhibitions, theatre, opera and ballet proving popular with businesses across a range of industry sectors. Despite the big four sports of golf, football, rugby and horse racing continuing to dominate the corporate events calendar, visits to the theatre and art exhibitions have leapfrogged less popular sports like cricket in the last two to three years.
Amidst all these changes within the corporate hospitality arena, the food and drink on offer at events still maintains a key role. The survey identifies this as the joint-third highest reason for client enjoyment and the joint-second most important factor in an event’s success.
With a crucial role of any corporate event being the enjoyment of those invited, food and drink is clearly a key concern for the host, as Alastair explains: “In our experience, people still want the food and beverage side to be very high quality. To assist in this we are the only company in the UK that has a specialised event catering team, so we have the same group of people going round the country for the various events.
“It is not just about the food either, it is getting the facilities there as well and there is a special skill in that, which helps us give a consistent and reliable service. You can’t re-run the event, you have to get it right on the day, so reliability is very important.” This is again backed-up by the findings of the survey with 64 per cent of guests and a massive 87 per cent of hosts feeling that the food quality and presentation is very important to the success of an event.
The 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester provided an ideal example of the challenges food and beverage provision can bring to arranging events. Here, Sodexho provided 4500 metre square of marquee and 72,000 pieces of fine bone china and crystal glassware. “We provided all the hospitality for that and had people arriving at all times of day.
Consequently the right sort of food was a hot and cold buffet that ran all day. It started with breakfast, moved into brunch, lunch, then high tea and finally dinner because the needs of the people meant that they came and went all through the day,” explains Alastair.
“We also covered the Rugby Union World Cup in Australia and the type of food there in some parts would best be described as ‘grazing’. At that event people just wanted to nibble a bit of food and then go and talk and then return for another bit of food.”
Despite this, Alastair feels there is still very much a time and a place for the formal three course lunch. “At an event like Henley Regatta, which is almost a social occasion rather than a sporting occasion, people expect to sit down and have lunch, dress up, come back and have afternoon tea and sip champagne.”
One area that Alastair does identify as an area of constant change within the food and drink is in the field of trends. “You can’t ignore the trends in eating. A hospitality customer is the same customer who goes to restaurants and has all the different dining experiences that we all have now, whether it is fine dining or casual dining.
Therefore there is a demand depending on the client and the event to respond to whatever the trends are. For example, we were recently asked to do Thai style food at Henley Regatta, which is quite peculiar as that event is very traditional. Despite this, it went down a storm, and we had the most compliments we have had in recent years for a menu from that brief.”
The National Corporate Hospitality Survey also identified that a significant percentage (almost 40 per cent) of people who attend corporate events feel that days-out of this nature have improved since the last survey in 2000, with only five per cent believing they have deteriorated. Of the guests who felt corporate hospitality is getting better, most said this was due to the quality of the food.
This continual improvement in what the industry offers is due in no small part to its ability to accommodate fashions and changes in tastes. Despite this, Alastair feels it is the traditional areas that will continue to decide the success or failure of a corporate event. “It is a combination of factors – the location, the right level of people and the right number of hosts to talk to customers, so someone actually introduces the guest and looks after them. To be truly exceptional an event needs high quality service, attention to detail and great presentation, and if you get those ingredients right you should have a fantastic corporate event.
Overall, the National Corporate Hospitality Survey paints a healthy picture for the future of the industry, now returning to some normality after the fall-out from the conseque-nces of 9/11.
In the year proceeding the survey 34 per cent of hosts said spending on corporate events increased, while only 16 per cent said it decreased. In addition around 24 per cent of hosts said they would increase their spending again in the following year with only eight per cent looking to invest less in this form of marketing – all promising indicators for the sector in the coming years. FC
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