NEW ORLEANS Though none of the companies currently involved in the Avendra procurement system were speakers at the Hotel E-Supply Conference here, the hotel alliance s presence was still felt by many, and still heavily debated. Though most view Avendra as competition, some see the alliance as healthy competition.
“Just as Pepsi s officially stance is to publicly attack Coke every chance it gets, and vice versa, I think privately they both would admit that they are better companies because of the other,” said Richard Barrett, vp/procurment at Starwood Hotels and Resorts. “It s good to have different models out there, competition is a good thing.”
And Avenda is definitely providing a lot of competition, however, some hotel experts are quick to point out that the companies aligning to create this competition are also competing with each other in almost every other segment of the industry.
“When you have one competing company trying to work with another competing company, eventually one will try to dominate,” said Anthony Nieves, svp/purchasing at Hilton Hotels Corp. He also added that Hilton does not view Avendra as competition, but simply as an entirely different business model unrelated to Hilton.
However, John Noller, vp/corporate purchasing at Sunstone Hotel Investors, frankly admitted that, ” yes, Avendra is competition.” But because Sunstone s projects to transact $45 million in electronic purchases in 2001, Noller noted that the company was confident that the hotel alliance would not negatively affect Sunstone s business. (1/17/01) Diana M. Rodriguez