Nowadays, money spent on food and beverage is a lot more that it used to be in the past, hence meeting planners take food and beverage negotiations very seriously. The best way to start your negotiations is by researching. You need to gather all your facts and figures and use post-convention reports to determine the hotel’s food and beverage revenue from your meeting. Make sure not to forget certain hidden revenues from affiliated groups, exhibit floor concessions, hospitality suites, on-site restaurants, lounges and individual room service.

Another important step of the negotiation process is to determine the things you definitely need and the things that are not absolutely essential. In other words, you should make a draft of your priorities. Try to decide what is more important. For example, you might prefer to have filet mignon at a particular price instead of different wine with each course.

What follows are a few guidelines regarding important issues such as price, guarantees and overset, complimentary items and service. Don’t forget that the best time to start negotiating is at the contract stage.

• Price: If you are booking 5 years out, you can negotiate before signing the contract. You can request a fixed percentage off the menu prices to be in effect 6 months before the meeting or you may ask to have the previous year’s prices apply to your meeting. You can also request that the current menu prices won’t increase by more than a certain percentage each year. Another thing to remember is that you may be able to negotiate prices 12 months out (catering managers prefer 6 months out) by agreeing on percentage ceiling above the current prices. If the prices don’t meet your budget, you can work with your catering manager to design menus that fall into your price range.
  
  
• Guarantees and Overset: Although hotels request to know the final number of people for all food functions 3 days in advance, you may be able to agree to a 48-hour guarantee by ordering standard food and beverage items from the hotel restaurants. Also, hotels usually want a 5 percent overset, but you can increase it depending on the number of attendees, the menu and the style of service. Lastly, make sure you specify in your contract that the hotel will not only need to set up extra tables and chairs but also will be prepared to serve food to the additional people.
  
  
• Complimentary Items: Even though, the days of complimentary receptions are almost over you may be able to negotiate some low-cost complimentary items such as a continental breakfast for your board meeting, decorative items, dinner for the executive board, candles, ice carvings, themed backdrops, one complimentary meal for every 50 to 75 coves, or credit to your master account on a fixed percentage of your total food and beverage revenue. Also, if your group is hosting a dinner that is either very large or lavish, you can request hors d’oeuvres, a glass of wine, dessert, or an upgrade of one of your courses.
  
  
• Service Ratios: Don’t forget to negotiate service ratios and specify them in the contract. For a sit-down meal, there should be one waiter for every 25 guests at breakfast and 20 at lunch and dinner. For a buffet meal, there should be a one-to-40 ratio for breakfast and one-to-30 for lunch and dinner. For an expensive menu or whenever wine is being served (hence food service will be slow when wine is being served and vice versa) there should be a service ratio of one-to-16 or one-to-15. Make sure you specify there will be no extra labor or service charges for all these ratios. Lastly, try to avoid the flat service charge many properties apply now to meal functions under a certain size.