A look into the next two years reveals a more intensive shift of meeting and group planners looking for ways to streamline and consolidate the process of researching and placing group business, a $300 billion global marketplace. By moving these processes to the online world, many corporations will consolidate their groups and meetings business under procurement departments allowing for the standardization of business practices.

How will this impact the hospitality industry? Tremendous change will be in hoteliers' future, yet as always the industry will adapt to the change and after a few bumps in the road will eventually wonder how they ever did business without meetings being booked online. We know this is true simply by looking at how the industry adapted to individual travelers moving their business online beginning in 1996 with the early adopters and becoming a mainstream method of making reservations in the last three years. Consider the fact that in October 2005, J.D. Power & Associates stated that 41% of total hotel revenue is coming from the Internet and that is just a mere 9 years after the first hotel direct reservation was booked online.

In order to understand obstacles and the need for industry standardization in moving ...