A new company, Travel Agent Meeting Resource (TAMR), is providing meeting-management services to home-based agents and has a preferred-supplier agreement with host agency Nexion.
“Nexion is continually exploring additional ways to provide its agents a wide array of services and suppliers to help them become even more profitable,” said Jackie Friedman, president of Nexion. “The agreement with Travel Agent Meeting Resources gives Nexion’s corporate agents a lucrative opportunity to provide meetings and incentive services to their clients with the support of a team behind them to ensure clients get the most value and best resources available in their group experience.”
Mark Anderson, TAMR president, said that his company sends out hotel RFPs for agents and creates a pricing spreadsheet. Once a client narrows a list down to two or three hotels, TAMR will negotiate the meeting contract, including elements such food and beverage and meeting rooms.
Hotels pay TAMR a placement fee for hotel rooms booked, about 10%.
TAMR has preferred agreements with other meeting-services providers, including Cvent, an event registration provider; AVI-SPL, an audiovisual equipment provider; SMG, an entertainment and convention venue-management company; and ConferencePro, which provides meeting management services. Many of these companies also pay a referral fee to TAMR.
TAMR passes on a portion of referral fees to travel agents.
Anderson, who held sales positions with meeting-management company Conference Direct for nine years, said about 30 agents participated in a webinar he conducted for Nexion describing TAMR’s services.
Kate Rice is a member of Nexion.