The Fairmont Southampton resort enjoyed its second successive record year in 2007 — and its marketing team has won an global award from the global hotel group to mark the achievement.

Revenue for the South Shore hotel soared by $11 million in 2007 compared to the prior year and exceeded budgeted revenue by $5 million. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) climbed by more than five percent.

The marketing team led by Shelley Meszoly, Fairmont's regional director of sales and marketing, was selected as the Sales Team of the Year, topping a field from 56 Fairmont properties world-wide.

Fairmont Bermuda's marketing team, for both the Southampton and sister hotel the Hamilton Princess, includes around 25 sellers, many posted in New York. The key to the Southampton hotel's success last year was not only generating healthy corporate group business, but managing to boost that business in the off-peak periods, the first and fourth quarters, Ms Meszoly said.

However, she added that 2008 was shaping out to be a tougher year for the hotel, as the economic downturn had led to fewer bookings from corporate groups.

But Fairmont Bermuda has increased its spending on marketing, focusing on the New York and Boston areas, and this has helped to attract a larger number of leisure visitors this year.

"We've been advertising in the New York Times and the Boston Globe for the past five weeks — it's an unprecedented marketing campaign," Ms Meszoly said. "And it seems to be working."

The Fairmont Southampton aims for corporate groups to make up about 60 percent of its business — but in 2008, that figure is down to 50 percent. The number of leisure visitors has increased slightly year on year, partly because of the marketing drive.

"People are still taking vacations," Ms Meszoly said. "And high-end visitors are not the same people who are lining up for the free gas promotions."

Ms Meszoly said it was no coincidence that the last two record years for the Fairmont Southampton had come at a time when low-cost carriers had started flying to the Island.

"The arrival of JetBlue (in May 2006) was absolutely the turning point in getting tourism back on the right track," Ms Meszoly said. "It also helped us to turn the corner. Before JetBlue, we couldn't even give it away during the winter. Zoom has also helped.

"If you're organising a corporate meeting and you can go to a beautiful resort in the Caribbean and the airfare is triple to go to Bermuda, then where are you going to go? We simply could not get people here with $800-$900 airfares."

Canadian Ms Meszoly, who has been working with Fairmont since 2000, firstly in Toronto and from 2002 in Bermuda, said the relative strength of the UK pound and the euro against the dollar, had also helped to increase business from the UK, Italy and Germany in recent years. But around 80 percent of the hotel's business still emanates from the US.

While Bermuda's image was good among the travelling public, there was still room for improvement, she added.

"From a business travelling perspective, Bermuda has a huge market," Ms Meszoly said. "With the leisure market, there's a lot more still to be done. There are pockets of New England where you talk to people about Bermuda and all they say is that their grandparents went there on honeymoon.

"We work together with the Bermuda Alliance for Tourism, the Bermuda Hotel Association and even other hotels and cottage colonies to market Bermuda. When you speak to any seller from Bermuda, they will all tell you they sell Bermuda first."