Industry Insights Archives

A Deep Dive into Rosen Hotels & Resorts in Orlando

By Jennifer Boynton

Greetings from Central Florida! I would like to extend a huge congratulations to the Rosen Hotels & Resorts on celebrating 50 years in business this year and let you know a little more about one of my favorite hotel partners.

By Jennifer Boynton

Greetings from Central Florida!

I would like to extend a huge congratulations to the Rosen Hotels & Resorts on celebrating 50 years in business this year and let you know a little more about one of my favorite hotel partners.

When booking one of our many events in the Orlando market, I am sure you have come across the Rosen properties that onPeak offers. What you may not know is the many details about this independent, local brand.

Some quick facts:
Rosen Hotels and Resorts is the largest independent chain of hotels in central Florida, and they run 7 area hotels. onPeak is most familiar with their 3 convention center properties: Rosen Plaza, Rosen Centre and, the crown jewel of their portfolio, Rosen Shingle Creek.

All Rosen properties offer:

Complimentary self-parking
Complimentary Wi-Fi in guestrooms and public areas
They never have resort fees!

I am excited to share with you a little about the founder, the brand’s history, and dig deeper into the three properties we often partner with.

Harris Rosen is the Founder of Rosen Properties. He had previous industry experience working for Hiltons across the country and helped oversee Disneyworld hotels as they were being built. He even worked part-time as a Disney character! Harris decided to take his life savings and strike out on his own to purchase his first property, Quality Inn International, and renamed it Rosen Inn International. Those first few years he saved money by living and working on the property. He has always been very hands on, even gardening the grounds and working the front desk. Mr. Rosen can still be seen visiting the properties and walking the grounds today. His grown children also share his passion and chose to work in the family business. A unique aspect of this company is that they are debt free. Growing slowly and sustainably as opposed to taking on large debts has served them well in tough economic times.

The “Rosen Difference” is earning guests’ loyalty by doing the right thing and exceeding expectations that you can feel that firsthand. Like onPeak, people who love their job tend to stick around. Rosen has 272+ employees with over 25 years seniority. This is no surprise since Orlando Business Journal voted them one the best places to work in 2023.

Mr. Rosen is passionate about health and wellness and likes to share his enthusiasm with his associates. He and his culinary team created Rosen’s Perfect Pizza™, a honey whole-wheat crust containing no trans fats that is sold at his seven hotels [Being from Chicago, I know pizza and it always hits the spot]. Rosen is a master swimmer and opened an aquatic and fitness center that also teaches lifesaving water techniques and a learn-to-swim program. The center has even hosted the special Olympics and Michael Phelps! Rosen opened his own college of hospitality management, and it has been voted one of the best in the nation. They offer an unheard of Health Care plan for their employees which includes perks like paying 100% of the remaining balance of any hospital bill over $750.

I was in awe of the amount of philanthropic efforts Harris Rosen has spearheaded. He has donated to Haiti earthquake relief, built a local Jewish community center, donated millions to brain cancer research, on behalf of his son, and even been a recipient of Oprah’s Dream Academy’s President’s Award. One of the most impressive things I learned about is the Harris Rosen Foundation Tangelo Park Program. This program offers free preschool for any child 2-4 years old living in the disadvantaged community of Tangelo Park (soon to be adopted by the local Parramore community as well). As if that isn’t big enough, they also offer college scholarships to any Florida public college or vocational/trade school, including room and board for high school graduates of the program. Throughout the years, high school graduation rates in the area have improved from approximately 55% to nearly 100%, outstanding!

As promised, a closer look at the hotels we frequently partner with:

Rosen Plaza: Think convenience. The property is located closest to the West concourse of the OCCC with a sky bridge connecting the two. For area nightlife and upscale dining options you are also just across the street from the action at Pointe Orlando, an open-air entertainment complex. The hotel has 800 boutique inspired rooms, 7 dining options, and a popular local nightclub, 3NINE, named after Harris’s grandfather.

Rosen Centre: Rosen Centre is newly renovated and feels technically modern and sleek. This 1,334-room property also has covered walkways to both sides of the convention center. If you are looking for great views of Orlando this 24-story hotel is the one for you.

Rosen Shingle Creek: I had the pleasure of staying at the Rosen Shingle for the first time recently and, although I am usually one to be out on the town, this is one property I did not want to leave. This Spanish revival style, 1,501 room, upscale property boasts gorgeous views of their Arnold Palmer designed championship golf course. Foodies will be impressed with the property’s two triple A 4 diamond restaurants, Calla Bella and A Land Remembered.

The hotel even has an onsite farm supplying them with local and seasonal produce. Not everything was fine dining though. I was most impressed with the 18 Monroe Street Market. A 24-hour deli and convenience store with very reasonable prices and quick friendly service. The 4 outdoor pools were the perfect spot to enjoy their insanely good gelato!

So, rest assured when you are booking a Rosen Hotel that your convention attendees and exhibitors will have a seamless experience and, like me, become brand loyal after having experienced the “Rosen Difference”. You can feel good supporting a brand that has done so much for their local community and is truly making a difference in the lives of Orlando residents!

Sadly, we just found out that Harris Rosen passed away this year on November 25. We share our heartfelt sympathies for his family and staff at this time. Rest in peace Mr Rosen.

A Peak into Product

By Tayler Gilmartin

onPeak’s Product team is responsible for understanding customer and business needs and bringing ideas to life to improve the user’s experience. Not only do we choose what to build, we also communicate the benefits and measure the product’s performance. The ultimate goal is to deliver value to our users and support the business. Alongside the internal teams, we work together to design, build, test, and launch product features. These features could be new features, existing feature enhancements, or even bug fixes.

By Tayler Gilmartin

Product Development Cycle

The Product Development Cycle refers to the process of coming up with an idea, researching that idea, designing the idea to meet the user’s needs, and bringing that idea to life. There are many different definitions and outlines of the Product Development Cycle stages. I breakdown the stages as follows: ideation, research, design, define, develop, test, launch, and iterate.

Through this endless cycle, we iterate over and over, improving our already existing products and bringing new ones to life.

Who is Involved?

Currently, our team is made up of Product Managers who moonlight as designers, but in the future, we plan to bring on a Product Designer specific to UI and UX. We’ll talk a little bit about each role below including our developer and QA friends. While developers and QA are not a group within the Product team, they play an important role in the product development cycle.

Product Managers

Product Managers work to define strategies that will help build successful features by listening to customer and business needs, understanding the technology, and aligning these needs with the business goals. We are responsible for the product vision, product roadmap, and product success. We work to translate those user needs into requirements and specifications: what needs to happen, when should it happen, and how should it happen. We work with a designer to define design specific guidelines: how should it look and how should it feel. From there, we hand over the requirements to a developer, who implements these updates and truly brings the ideas to life. If you want a good laugh, watch the video linked here for a glimpse into writing good specs. View Video Here

Product Designer / UI & UX Designers

Product Designer / UI & UX Designers cater to the user’s point of view. Their focus is on UX (user experience) best practices, UI (user interface) design best practices, and ultimately creating a coherent user experience. Some of their responsibilities include conducting user interviews, usability testing, and design prototyping.

Developers

Developers take the requirements and specifications defined by the Product Manager and Designer and implement that through writing code. Not only are they writing the code, but they are also writing tests to ensure a feature works as intended and doesn’t break existing functionality.

Quality Assurance (QA)

Our Quality Assurance (QA) team members are the ones who try to break what the developers built. Yes … on purpose. They test the features and ensure the feature is not just working as intended, but the feature meets the quality standards. They will work to test every possible scenario to identify errors and provide feedback to ensure the users have a smooth, error-free experience.

A Day in the Life …

Product Manager: “The light above the u-shaped, corner desk on the 2nd floor office is not working. We should replace the lightbulb, so that anyone working at this desk can do so without visibility issues. The standard bulb used is …”

Product Designer: “Okay, so what color lightbulb will create the best working experience? I mean … what vibe are we going for? Let me check with everyone who uses a lightbulb in their office.”
Interviews every person in the office … “
Okay, so 82.03% said LED Daylight, so the exact bulb we will use is …”

Developer: Sighs, picks up the lightbulb and screws it in …“This work for everyone?”

QA: Flips light switch on and off multiple times, unscrews lightbulb and flips light switch on and off multiple times again, screws lightbulb back in and flips light switch on and off again while jumping up and down, spinning around, and talking really loud …“It works guys!”

Product Manager: “Awesome! Next time we change the lightbulb, we should think about costs, energy efficie…”

Product Designer, Developer, and QA exit the room …

A Peek into Hotel Industry Relations

by Richard Albrecht

During our May 2023 Town Hall, Lisa shared that close to 750 hotel contracts were executed by the Hotel Industry Relations team in Q1 2023. This is an incredible achievement! It has been a steep uphill climb as the team contends with ever-changing market dynamics, so we asked the HIRM team to share their insights on what it’s like negotiating contracts in today’s environment. Here’s what they had to say…

by Richard Albrecht

First, those who have been in the meetings and events industry for a long time, you know that it’s cyclical. Every few years the industry shifts from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market back to a buyer’s market and so on. In our business, hotels are the sellers and the buyers are both onPeak and our clients. In the buyer’s markets of 2002 and 2008, hotels were much more inclined to negotiate (and in many instances, re-negotiate) Our clients often reaped big benefits in the form of lower rates, more generous concessions, and more lenient contractual terms. Today, however, we continue to be in a strong seller’s market and we’re really feeling the impact during contract negotiations.

Rate Escalators

In nearly every city, hotels are currently presenting much higher escalators than previously. An escalator is the yearly percentage by which a rate increases over the previous year. In some cases, say a contract for 2026, we’re not yet at the point of confirming the actual rate so instead we take the most recent year’s rate, let’s say 2022’s, and then negotiate the escalator that’ll be used to determine the 2026 rate. Negotiating an escalator provides more flexibility to adjust to changing market dynamics as opposed to confirming a rate 4 years out. It doesn’t mean that the rate will actually increase by the negotiated escalator, but it does mean that the hotel can’t increase the rate higher than the escalator.

The norm is 3% but some hotels are now presenting double-digit escalators, which can be eye-popping. Let’s take that 2026 contract as an example: 2022 was the most recent year the event was in that city and that hotel’s 2022 rate was $249. For 2026, the hotel wants a 6% escalator over the 2022 rate, which means that the 2026 rate could be as high as $314, quite the jump in just 4 years. A higher rate = more commission revenue for us but if the rate is too high, we could risk the hotel underselling it or it being outside an attendee’s budget. The HIRMs have to constantly balance this aspect during their rate benchmark analysis.

Limited Availability

Leisure travel continues to grow and is still having an impact on destinations all over the country. Some destinations, like Las Vegas, have a mix of leisure and convention travelers and hotels are doing their best to keep both occupancy and ADR (average daily rate) high. Hotels are filling up with leisure travelers which means that group room blocks are getting smaller and room rates are getting higher. Some hotels are even opting out of city-wide group blocks entirely, declining to work with us and instead banking on the compression caused by our group so they are able to yield higher rates.

Resort/Destination Fees

A few years back, resort fees became the norm in cities like Las Vegas and can include Wi-Fi, fitness center access, and use of the hotel’s pool. Well, now other cities are getting in on the fun. Many urban destinations in New York and California are implementing “destination fees” on top of the room rate. The HIRMs do their best to negotiate lower fees or make them optional for our exhibitors and attendees but in more and more destinations, these fees are here to stay.

Force Majeure

Simply put, Force Majeure refers to unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract. For your reading pleasure, here’s how Force Majeure might be addressed in one of our contracts:

“The performance of this Contract by either Party is subject to acts of God, war, threats or acts of terrorism, epidemic or outbreaks of disease, government regulation (including travel restrictions), disaster, fire, strikes, civil disorder, insurrection, curtailment of transportation facilities, disruption of necessary supplies, materials, or utilities, or other similar cause beyond the control of the Parties making it inadvisable, illegal, commercially impracticable, or impossible to hold the Convention or to make the Hotel available for use. This Contract may be terminated without penalty for any one or more of such reasons by written notice from one Party to the other.”

The conditions which define a Force Majeure event have always evolved over time, but not like they have as a result of the pandemic. Our clients are seeking broader definitions while hotels are seeking more narrow definitions. Since it’s still fresh in our minds, let’s take epidemics as an example: many of our hotel contracts simply listed “epidemic or outbreak of disease” as qualified Force Majeure events. However, hotels are now seeking to define them more narrowly in 2 ways: (1) they specify the entity that can declare a pandemic or epidemic (like the WHO or CDC) and (2) they stipulate that these conditions must prevent a certain percentage of attendees from travelling. For example, a hotel might require that a Force Majeure event must be declared by the CDC and that at least 40% of attendees must be prevented from travelling.

And not only that – the concept of “commercially impracticable” vs. “impossible” has been the subject of countless grueling discussions with hotels and clients regarding the definition of each term and which term benefits which party.

Then, to wrap things up, we asked the team these 2 questions:

Are there destinations (or hotels) that are easy to work with?

Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Orlando, and San Antonio are at the top the list of destinations that our HIRMs consider “easy to work with”. These cities, and their hotels, value convention business in general but they particularly value their partnership with onPeak, working with us to make it a win/win for all. The win/win of the partnership starts at the contracting level, but it extends to inventory management, rooming lists, and post cut-off activity. We do an exceptional job maximizing inventory, delivering timely reports and rooming lists, and keeping our hotel partners informed. This makes the next round of contract negotiations much less cumbersome because hotels remember how well we perform.

Are there destinations (or hotels) that are difficult to work with?

Whereas the team referred to destinations in general when talking about where it’s easy to work, when asked about where it’s difficult, it was all about hotels – Marriotts in particular. As a whole, it feels proportionally much more challenging to negotiate a Marriott contract than in previous years. It seems like every contract has a new clause or that provisions previously agreed upon have been removed, and these changes rarely benefit the client. Audit clauses are also becoming challenging, with more and more Marriotts only crediting audited room nights up to the contracted block.

In general, though, more and more hotels are scrutinizing contractual language and making edits to previously agreed upon clauses. More time is needed to review each contract and they often require legal evaluation (either by the hotels or by our clients). This increases the overall turnaround time, which then requires us to adjust our own internal timelines to meet client deadlines.

But, as we’ve seen time and time again, there’s no challenge our HIRMs cannot overcome! They’re a group of highly skilled and creative negotiators, always focused on executing a fair and balanced contract. Next time you see one, shake their hand and give them a pat on the back!

onPeak HIRM Team Members

Jason Gross (Director)
Jaime Benjamin
Patrick Groves
Megan Lennon
Jane Malloy
Brian Schend
Angela Vazquez
Deb Wilson
Nancy Cowie

How Do Our Clients Choose Their Event Location?

BY JASON GROSS
Clients have plenty of good reasons for holding their events in specific cities – great facilities, hotel room availability, world class dining, and weather, just to name a few.

By Jason Gross

Clients have plenty of good reasons for holding their events in specific cities – great facilities, hotel room availability, world class dining, and weather, just to name a few.

But our clients also choose specific cities for a variety of other reasons. Here are some (but not all) of the reasons a client may choose a specific destination for their event:

1. Convention Center

A convention center’s availability and event space size is the main reason clients choose a specific destination. As we move past the COVID era, clients’ demand for space continues to increase and cities are booking business further and further out. For that reason, finding a city that has the right size convention center to fit the group and making sure it is available for all dates is a critical step in a client selecting a destination.

2. Accommodations

We are all about heads in beds, so why not put this number 1? Clients need to make sure the city that is hosting their meeting has enough hotel rooms available to accommodate their attendees/exhibitors. Destinations like Las Vegas have over 150,000 rooms at various price points and locations which provide clients the ability to have enough hotel rooms to fit their programs.

3. Increased Attendance

Our clients want to choose an attractive destination, so that they can generate a strong attendance. A client will think about which city will boost attendance and which city will decrease attendance when making their decision.

4. Airport Access

Airport Access in the city that is hosting an event is crucial for the success of many client meetings. Most of our international heavy events choose major cities or destinations to host their meetings. The lift to those cities is easier than holding meetings in cities without major international arrivals.

5. Convention Services & Staff

Our clients want the best and when choosing a destination, that also applies to staffing and service. Cities that have experienced staff at the hotel and convention center level, tend to get a boost above the rest. Clients want to go to a city and be confident that their staff and their attendees will be well taken care of.

6. Location, Location, Location

Location matters when finding that perfect city. Being in close proximity to the airport, near the ocean, easy walkability, nearby attractions, easy shuttle routes, etc. Location matters for our clients. Geographic location is also a factor. If an event is not in the same city each year, clients will often do a rotation system for convention sites based on regions (West, Central, East).

7. Weather

Of course, the weather matters, who wants to sit in a meeting in Las Vegas in July or Chicago in February? Clients have consistent event dates and generally stick to these dates, so weather factors into many destination selections.

8. Transportation

Clients want to know ease of transportation to and from a destination, as well as the accessibility within the city itself. Every attendee has a different way they want to get around the city or to/from a convention center, so having options helps certain cities stand out. Transportation includes shuttle routes and costs to clients; walkability to/from convention center and hotels; taxi, Lyft, Uber availability; subway/train systems; or any other transportation features a city may have to offer.

9. Dining

Whether it is world class restaurants, prepared to go boxes, convention center food, or custom-made menus, most major destinations have a wide range of dining options that fit every attendee’s needs.

10. Cost

Clients always weigh the costs of a convention city against a city’s appeal. For example, New York is expensive, but it is also consistently ranked as one of the most desired destinations when clients poll members about convention locations.

11. Purpose

A city can be chosen for the unique characteristics found within that city. For example, Natural Products Expo West chooses Anaheim as a destination due to the natural food sources and commitment to sustainability found in Southern California. Miami Boat Show is held in Miami because of its access to water ways and the large boating community.

12. Local Support

Some events need the support of a local community in order to hold their meeting. RNC chose Milwaukee due to local support from the state government, convention and visitors bureau, and access to volunteers to make the city a success for 2024.

What We Learned at PCMA

by Richard Albrecht

At PCMA in January, Rose, Jason, and Rich attended a fascinating session entitled “What’s Next for the Business Events Industry”, moderated by Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, with Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton, Ben Erwin, Pres & CEO of Encore, and Matthew Slaughter, Dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth on the panel. Reflecting on the last few years, each offered their view of 2023 travel trends, live events, and the impacts of technology and inflation on the industry.

by Richard Albrecht

According to Nassetta, while many experts thought that everything was going to be dramatically different coming out of the pandemic, in reality nothing has changed all that much. Leisure business is stronger than ever and business travel is back. What has shifted, in his view, are work patterns and the concept of “bleisure” travel. The result of hybrid work arrangements, Hilton is seeing increased business travel in the form of combined business/leisure trips. People aren’t necessarily tied to a geographic location and that flexibility allows the “office” to travel with them.

Inflation is impacting labor costs in a big way – not only for event organizers but also for people attending those events. A concern was raised that, when looking to cut costs, event-goers might view attending an in-person event as elective and perhaps decide not to go. So, the mission for planners is to have a clear value proposition, making sure the event’s purpose and mission are clear so that they reinforce the importance of coming together. Planners have to give participants a compelling reason to make the financial investment to attend – “pent up demand” to travel will only last for so long.

When asked about how technology impacts a live event, the consensus was that technology supports, but does not replace, being together in person. It’s true that technology can enable worldwide participation in an event but it is by no means a substitute for being there in person. In Slaughter’s words, while the flow of people stopped during the pandemic, the flow of information and ideas never did. Over the last 100 years, many proclaimed that inventions like the radio, telephone, and internet (and even the metaverse) all signaled the end of people needing or wanting to come together in person. Well, they didn’t, and neither has the pandemic. Information and ideas will always flow and Slaughter concluded with this notion: “…we bring people together for that serendipitous discovery, the building of relational human capital. And that’s what business events do in many different ways.” So in other words, and as we’re already seeing, live events are back!