Hello everybody:

I am an American student conducting a master study in hospitality management at Turismo St. Ignasi in Barcelona and the Maastricht Hotel Management School in the Netherlands. As the final part of my study, I must carry out an internship along with a research project, which I am doing for Holland International in Amsterdam. It is a destination management company that specializes in travel arrangements for conventions, meetings, incentive trips, etc., as well as for professional sports teams.

The subject I have chosen is "The impact of VIP clients on a destination management company." I got the idea from the work my company was doing during the World Cup, when we were constantly under pressure to find hotels for many VIP clients in German cities where matches were taking place, often at the last minute. While it is quite clear that hotels greatly value VIP guests because of all the publicity they bring, I am not sure how much value they actually add to a company like mine. This is what I would like to investigate, but unfortunately I have not managed to find very much on the subject so far, and I was wondering if anybody could perhaps help me by referring me to any sources they might be aware of. Even if I cannot find any articles specifically related to VIPs and destination management, I would be interested in any studies you might know about that link VIP or celebrity guests with hotel sales performances, VIPs and the success of events, etc. Basically a starting point for my own research.

I would greatly appreciate any information you could give about this subject, or just to hear people's opinions about it.

Best regards,

Jeffrey Olsen
Received on Sun Jul 23 10:17:27 2006