The idea was simple—and dramatic: generate holiday season event revenue that would otherwise be lost to a dour economy and corporate cutbacks by slicing catering charges in half. And it worked.

San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants generated $80,000 from small parties that otherwise wouldn’t have happened at the 45 of its 48 properties taking part in the promotion. Now, the group of boutique hotels with chef-driven restaurants plans to make the promotion a regular feature.

Last August, Kimpton’s top brass noticed that group bookings for December 2009 were all but non-existent. To address this business dearth, they suggested a five-day window in October for groups to book events for December 1 through January 1 and receive 50 percent off of the entire catering bill for the event.

Chief Operating Officer Niki Leondakis says Kimpton was already enjoying “tremendous” success boosting room revenue throughout the year with e-mail marketing campaigns, promotions, and special offers for specific need periods. Executives decided to use a similar strategy with catering for the holidays and quickly put the promotion together.

Getting it in motion, Leondakis recalls, was a matter of conferring with the regional executives who oversee Kimpton’s operations. “It was getting everybody to agree that it was a good idea,” Leondakis explains, “and going to the firm that we use for marketing campaigns and laying in the graphics and the offer. Then it was just a matter of using our existing database of corporate clients.” The time from idea to implementation was, Leondakis says, “pretty short, probably within 30 days.” How were she and her staff able to pull it off with such a short lead time? “We do that all the time,” she says. “We’re a small organization, so there aren’t lots of people who have to get involved in something like that.”

After sending the marketing e-mail to its database, the Kimpton team had to be on its toes. “Because we only had a five-day window [for bookings], we had to make sure we answered those phones,” says Belinda Mazarello, Kimpton’s regional director of catering for the northeast. “That meant focusing on scheduling to make sure we had coverage all the time, getting menus to people right away, and getting them the information they needed immediately. It was better if we had people come and tour the property, and we had a long waiting list for that.”

On an operational level, Mazarello says timing was key. “That was probably the one thing we had to think through especially well to make sure we did right. ‘This launches at this time, so when will the people actually read their emails? When should we expect our first phone calls?’ It was a little unique to manage.”

The guests themselves, she reports, uniformly thought it was an “amazing” promotion. “They were really interested in booking it because they probably would not have had a holiday party otherwise. They would call and ask, ‘What’s the catch?’” Of course, there was no catch. Because food cost in catering is lower than that of other F&B revenue centers due to the fixed number of people, fixed menu, and relatively little waste, Leondakis says, “that’s why 50 percent off didn’t kill us.”

Importantly, guests at the events didn’t feel they were attending a bargain-basement affair. “Nothing was different,” Mazarello says.

“When it comes to the actual event, the guests shouldn’t know that anything is being discounted. There was nothing we did differently in executing it. It was really nice to have something like this on such a grand scale: simple and easy.”

Indeed, plans are already in the works to repeat the promotion. “We will definitely do it again in 2010,” says Leondakis, who adds that it could become an annual program. “If we find ourselves in the third quarter with a booking pace that we’re not happy with, yes, absolutely.” Kimpton might also start its marketing program earlier in the year, she adds.

“A call to action is important,” Leondakis continues. “We might want to do it in September to catch some people who haven’t made decisions yet or before they make the decision not to have a holiday party.”

Executives may also opt to add a second five-day, 50 percent discount period. “I think it is possible,” Leondakis says, “and we’re talking about it for when there are other need periods. There are degrees of success, but there is always a return on the investment because e-mail marketing campaigns are low cost.”

Howard Riell is a veteran editor who has written for nearly 140 business and consumer magazines, e-zines, blogs, newspapers, and newsletters. He is based in Las Vegas.

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