What was your final budget? Which did you select as the best hotel for the sales conference and why?

In this exercise, you will use software at various online travel sites to arrange transportation and lodging for a large sales force to attend a sales conference at two alternative locations. You will use that information to calculate total travel and lodging costs and to decide where to hold the conference.

The Foremost Composite Materials Company is planning a two-day sales conference for January 15 and 16, starting with a reception on the evening of January 14. The conference consists of all-day meetings that the entire sales force, numbering 125 sales representatives and their 16 managers, must attend. Each sales representative requires his or her own room, and the company needs two common meeting rooms – one large enough to hold the entire sales force plus a few visitors (200) and the other able to hold half the force.

Management has set a budget of $125,000 for the representatives’ room rentals. The hotel must also have such services as overhead and computer projectors as well as business center and banquet facilities. It also should have facilities for the company reps to be able to work in their rooms and to enjoy themselves in a swimming pool or gym facility. The company would like to hold the conference either in Miami or Marco Island, Florida.

Foremost Materials usually likes to hold such meetings in Hilton- or Marriott-owned hotels. Use the Hilton and Marriott websites to select a hotel in whichever of these cities would enable the company to hold its sales conference within its budget.

Link to the Hilton and Marriott home pages and search them to find a hotel that meets Foremost Materials sales conference requirements. Once you have selected the hotel, locate flights arriving the afternoon prior to the conference because the attendees will need to check in the day before and attend the reception the evening prior to the conference. Your attendees will be coming from Los Angeles (54), San Francisco (32), Seattle (22), Chicago (19), and Pittsburgh (14).

Determine the costs of each airline ticket from these cities. When you are finished, create a budget for the conference. The budget will include the cost of each airline ticket, the room cost, and $60 per attendee per day for food.