Rebecca Cole, Director at Event & Conference Co. recently spoke at Maximum Occupancy West Coast 2025, the Hotel and Accommodation Industry Conference hosted at Pan Pacific Perth.
Speaking alongside Mike McKenna and Sarah Casey on the panel, Rebecca shared her thoughts from a PCO’s perspective on the key challenges facing the industry and how accommodation providers can collaborate better with PCO’s to drive occupancy.
Some of the key points included:
- There are opportunities to improve partnerships between PCO’s and accommodation providers which lead to possible revenue generation for hotels.
- The terms for accommodation agreements need to be revisited. OTA’s are often more competitive, with better terms for delegates including pricing and cancellation terms.
- WA as a destination does hold a number of challenges including distance, venue availability and infrastructure (particularly from a conference perspective). It will be interesting to see what happens with the PCEC renovation.