Hotels say 'I do' to destination weddings, ring in profits

Hotel & Motel Management, Feb 21, 2005 by Shannon McMullen-Coyne

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Hotels that help couples plan a destination wedding serve their cake and eat it too.

Since 9/11, the trend of having "vacation nuptials" has increased significantly, according to hotel companies. Several of those companies are jumping on the destination wedding bandwagon by rolling out new programs or developing tools specifically for the highly lucrative wedding market. New Web sites, wedding planners and honeymoon packages are among the services being heavily marketed to engaged couples.

Wyndham International was one of the first on the scene, having introduced its Destination Weddings By Wyndham Web site in early 2002. The site provided brides and grooms with a way to plan all aspects of their custom wedding.

After noticing an increase in the number of wedding events being booked at their own hotels, Marriott International and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide also began marketing wedding services to engaged couples.

Marriott expanded its wedding service with more than 1,700 certified wedding event planners to design and assist with weddings at its Marriott and Renaissance hotels. In addition, Marriott has rolled out a new toll-free weddings help desk and introduced a dedicated weddings Web site.

The number of wedding events at Marriott and Renaissance hotels grew 10 percent over the last two years, said Robin Uler, senior v.p. of food, beverage and retail. Annually, wedding-related business generates property revenues of approximately $300 million for Marriott's full-service hotels.

Starwood decided to get in on the destination wedding trend by launching a honeymoon program, which is the first step in the launch of a full wedding tool kit for engaged couples, said Jennifer Hyman, manager, leisure strategy for Starwood Hotels.

"We are working on expanding our honeymoon program to include all aspects of a destination wedding," she said. "There's such a big trend out there toward having these types of weddings. About 15 percent of all weddings are destination events. We found on average, there are 50 people in attendance at such weddings, which represents huge revenue."

Starwood is working on developing an online request-for-proposal program so engaged couples can communicate what their needs are, and a Starwood wedding concierge will call them back to begin the planning and booking process, according to Hyman. The full destination wedding program was expected to be ready for rollout in the first half of 2005.

"We think it's critically important to get into this market as soon as possible," she said. "We want to let people know we can help them plan a unique, custom wedding."

Meanwhile, Wyndham has been adding features to its wedding-planning programs for the last several years to keep couples interested in booking with them.

For example, in 2003 Wyndham offered those who booked their wedding celebration on a preferred wedding date at any Wyndham property a free honeymoon package. Wyndham's free honeymoon offer included complimentary accommodations for five nights, a champagne greeting, complimentary breakfast and dinner each day, as well as a special honeymoon memento upon check-out.

In addition, Wyndham launched a Web site specifically for its growing wedding business, www.WeddingsbyWyndham.com. The Web site is a means to quickly and easily access the information that is important to planning a destination wedding and pulling together details on all Wyndham properties, weddings and honeymoon offerings into one resource.

hmm@advanstar.com