Meeting planners can provide hotels with substantial revenue. Yet little empirical research has examined how hotel sales personnel might facilitate generating this business from meeting planners. Employing relationship selling is crucial for hotel salespeople. This article develops a model of and reports the results of a study that examined key relationship selling constructs in a meeting planner/hotel salesperson context. Survey data were collected from a random sample of professional meeting planners in the United States, all members of Meeting Professionals International. Findings suggest that salesperson expertise, willingness, and power have an effect on whether planners intend to perpetuate the relationship with the salesperson. In addition, planners’ perceived trust in the salesperson and satisfaction with the interaction with the salesperson also affect that intention. Managerial and further research implications are offered.
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