The Westin Dragonara Resort and Starwood Hotels & Resorts have launched a unique new service for meeting and conference delegates – StarMeeting Concierge.

At each meeting, the hotels now provide a meeting concierge assigned to a meeting organiser as a permanent point of contact, on hand to welcome delegates, explain how the technology works, anticipate needs and respond quickly to any requests for assistance, ensuring the best service.

Meetings areas in hotels have a visible desk for the StarMeeting Concierge in an area where several meeting groups may be. In The Westin Dragonara’s case, the StarMeeting desk is located at the entrance of the Conference Centre. The service is offered at no additional cost to the customer.

The new concept, piloted in hotels at Heathrow, Frankfurt and Madrid from May 2004 and in Malta from February 2005, has received excellent feedback from customers and operators. The programme has been launched in North America and is now being introduced across Starwood’s hotels in the Europe, Middle East and Africa division, with 60 hotels already up and running. StarMeetings Concierges are available across Starwood’s hotel brands of Sheraton, Westin, Sheraton Four Points, the Luxury Collection portfolio and St Regis hotels.

Senior director, master black belt, Six Sigma – EAME Robyn Pratt said: “Having a consistent process for our meetings customers, which is the same in our key meetings hotels, is something that our customers have been asking for, which was highlighted in our Meeting Planner Research. For each meeting to have its assigned concierge to welcome delegates, explain facilities and assist with any queries and anticipate needs gives so much added value to our meetings experience.”

The StarMeeting Concierge concept is the result of a Six Sigma project – the change management tool used by Starwood globally. Using customer and Starwood associate feedback it became clear Starwood’s hotels needed to offer such a service, and this encouraged the company to review the whole meetings offering and processes, from booking to delivery.

The concept was introduced initially in Starwood’s American hotels and proceeded to be a key driver in improving the hotels Meeting Planner Satisfaction scores – the method all Starwood hotels use to track and monitor service and efficiency levels for meetings customers. From this success, the Six Sigma team in EAME were encouraged to implement it as a key project for the division and it is now a required best practice across all meetings hotels.