Have You Heard the One About The Government Bid?
Thursday, March 13th, 2008Recently Stellar Events ventured into the amazing arena of Federal government bids for meetings. We’ve had some success: we booked over 500 room nights in Rochester, NY in February! When I told the stunned hotel sales rep that the business had been awarded, she replied, “Are you kidding?â€
Yes, helping the government plan meetings demands a sense of humor. Do they really think there is a hotel with meeting space and a campus-like setting within ten miles of downtown San Diego (in summer) for the mandated per diem rate of $139? Will attendees be dining on shrimp at the National Symposium on Shellfish?
Recently Stellar Events proposed a rather large and lengthy meeting that had to take place within 35 miles of the Brandenburg Station Road Gate of Ft. Knox. Louisville was the only option, and the hotel sales person assured me they met the distance requirement, especially since a new highway had opened. Since we couldn’t Mapquest a gate as a starting point, we figured we were good to go.
Our proposal was rejected as technically unacceptable because the hotel was judged to be 36 miles from the gate. We may have had the lowest bid for the desired package of sleeping rooms/meeting space/meals/audio-visual, but we’ll never know.
What we do know is that the Federal government is not willing to go the extra mile.
