By Dominic Abassi

Where are Nanaimo’s conference goers staying?

Sep 23, 2016 | 12:26 PM

NANAIMO — The city of Nanaimo is going to spend more time and more money to review a report they’ve already paid $50,000 for.

Councillors have asked staff to verify and clarify the information contained in a report studying the Vancouver Island Conference Centre and the business case for an adjoining hotel. The call for the review comes after members of the Nanaimo Hotel Association went public with their belief the numbers are wildly inaccurate.

“We just want to make sure we’re getting as much of the business pie as we should get,” says Henry Traa, general manager of the Coast Bastion Hotel. “If there were 14,000 room nights that came here in 2015, I (Coast Bastion Hotel) can only account for approximately 2,000. Where are they staying? If the convention centre is saying they’re staying at all different places, they should know where they’re staying.”

The city hired consultant CBRE Hotels in January to conduct the study, at a cost of $50,000. The detailed report examined the conference centre’s operation, as well as the feasibility and impact of building an adjoining hotel.

The consultant presented numbers showing the VICC hosted 487 events in 2015. Those events, according to CBRE’s formula, resulted in nearly 15,000 room nights at local hotels.

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However, the Hotel Association contends their data shows only about 4,000 room nights were generated by the conference centre last year.

“I don’t think it’s realistic. We would’ve done gangbusters of business here. We would’ve been full all the time. That’s a lot of business,” says Traa.

Traa was asked if it’s possible that the discrepancy in the number of room nights could be attributed to guests staying at their hotels but not booking under a conference rate or not declaring the purpose of their stay.

“90 per cent of those rooms? Really? 90 per cent?,” says Traa, referring to the amount of unaccounted room nights. “I have never heard of that before. That 90% of the bookings that would come through for a conference would book on their own.”

VICC general manager Denise Tacon says CBRE produced their report and room night estimates based on data provided from their database system and determined there were delegates that came here and stayed here.

“Where they stayed here is really the question of the day,” says Tacon.

She says from a solution based perspective, it would be clear that the hoteliers and themselves could probably work towards a better communication model that enables them to have better perspective of where these guests are staying.

“We can only assume they have stayed there. The client is in charge of their own contract and the hotels are responsible to create those contracts with those clients.”

Tacon says the VICC is largely a facilitator between conference clients and local hotels. She says they will find out room availability and rates through a request for proposals process and then give that to the client. From there, it’s up to them and the hotels to work out the contract.

At some larger facilities, Tacon says, you would see exact data of where attendees were staying, but not in their case.

“We don’t actually negotiate the hotel rooms for the hotels. They do that. So I think that in itself makes it difficult to get all of the details.”

Traa however, seems to believe the VICC is in a position to track room nights.

“Where does a convention start? Where does the first initial information go to? They have all the information right there, they know how many rooms a conference wants to book,” he says.

Bill Corsan, the city’s real estate manager, says this discussion shows a lack of connectivity between the conference centre and the hotel community. He says the review of CBRE’s report will involve both the Hotel Association, the VICC and the consultant. He concedes there will likely be additional costs associated.

He says city staff did read the initial report, although they didn’t necessarily scrutinize the data, noting they put a certain amount of trust in a premier consultant.

It’s unclear how things will move forward, according to Corsan, who adds there’s no timeline or budget in place for the review of the report.