Because Meetings (really do) Mean Business

President's Message

By Brian Stevens

What if IBM and Microsoft never had the meeting at which IBM gave control of the operating systems to Bill Gates and Microsoft? What if Ray Kroc never met face to face with Dick and Mac McDonald? What if no one heard Martin Luther King’s famed “I Have a Dream” speech in person?

It’s hard to imagine a world without face to face meetings and interactions. Meetings are about connections. Face to face human interaction is the spark that motivates all of us to build, renew and nurture business relationships. Meetings bring people together and bring out the best in creative thinking, innovation and imagination. Ideas are what move businesses, shape nations, and create compelling new products and services. Ideas are the cornerstone of what meetings are all about. Without ideas, we are not inspired. At ConferenceDirect we like to say meetings, conventions and tradeshows generate not only a return on investment but a return on ideas.

In this economic slowdown, we focus more on cost cutting opportunities rather than revenue enhancements – but we can’t cut our way to future success and prosperity. We must build top line revenue. Meetings, conventions and tradeshows are critical for businesses and individuals sales and marketing growth, individual performance enhancement, and new business identification.

Meetings are economic drivers. They foster strong, long term personal business relationships which cannot be duplicated by teleconference calls, webinars, or email. Technology can enhance meetings but cannot substitute the power of face to face interaction.

The increased media sensationalism on meetings is one-sided. We agree that taxpayer dollars should be spent wisely. However, the knee-jerk rhetoric has created an environment in which CEOs are cancelling meetings due to the possibility they may be vilified by the media. Especially hard hit, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority notes that in the last 90 days, that market has lost 340 meeting groups representing $131M in lost revenue. A recent study by Meetings & Conventions Magazine (91% of all respondents worked for companies that were not receiving federal recovery or “bailout” funds) found that 20% of meeting planners had cancelled a meeting solely due to the negative media pressure and worries about perception. In addition, 52% said the “mass-media backlash against meetings” had been “extremely” or “moderately” influential in that decision.

Business travel drives 2.4M jobs in the United States and meetings and events are directly responsible for another one million jobs nationally. Business travel accounts for $240B in spending and $39B in tax revenue at the federal, state, and local level. In Orlando, total travel (leisure and business) is a $31B per year industry, directly or indirectly employing one in four Central Floridians.

ConferenceDirect is not immune to outside negative influences affecting the overall meetings industry. We are the second largest meeting planning company in the county, serving two million travelers per year and generating more than 5,000 meetings, conventions and tradeshows each year. We have seen cancellations within our own company, especially in the financial sector.

The US Travel Association has created a “Meetings Mean Business” campaign designed to:

• Urge the US Department of the Treasury to swiftly enact clear and sensible meetings and events guidelines for companies receiving taxpayer assistance
• Defeat punitive legislation designed to unreasonably restrict corporate meetings and events
• Encourage Congress to tone down its criticism of meetings and events and acknowledge travel as part of the solution to America’s economic difficulties
• Inform the media about the benefits of meetings and events and the unintended victims of sensational and uninformed criticism

For more information on this campaign and its solid philosophy, please visit www.meetingsmeanbusiness.com

Meetings, conventions and tradeshows are essential to business growth and economic health. As importantly, they provide a compelling platform for connecting people to opportunities and a return on ideas. (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.)

Brian Stevens

TAKE A STAND FOR OUR INDUSTRY

Visit the new official website of the Meetings Mean Business campaign at www.meetingsmeanbusiness.com. This all-encompassing site is an excellent resource for campaign updates, press releases, key data on travel industry statistics, Value of Meetings data, and Industry Guidelines for Meetings & Events.

2010 ANNUAL PARTNER MEETING: ATLANTA

Mark your calendar for ConferenceDirect's 2010 Annual Partner Meeting — May 11 & 12 at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, Georgia.

BUT WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING?

In-room movies are a popular feature during meetings and conferences, and according to industry leader LodgeNet, the most-viewed video-on-demand movies during calendar 2008 were:

• I Am Legend   (Warner Bros.)
• American Gangster  (NBC Universal)
• 27 Dresses  (20th Century Fox)
• National Treasure: Book Of Secrets   (Disney)
• Charlie Wilson’s War   (NBC Universal)
• What Happens In Vegas   (20th Century Fox)
• Indiana Jones: Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull   (Paramount)
• Wanted   (NBC Universal)
• Juno   (20th Century Fox)
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall  (NBC Universal)

LodgeNet provides in-room media services to more than 1.9 million hotel rooms at 10,000 hotel properties worldwide.

Keeping it Simply … Green

By Jeff Devine

It seems that no matter where you turn, no matter what industry has the podium or whatever action we perform on a daily basis, the topic of “greening” our businesses and lifestyles inevitably comes up. In fact, though we’ve made huge strides relative to the ecology and sustainability over the last 10 years, we have an incredibly long way to go.

Are ‘green’ efforts a fad or is it a new business reality that will stand the test of time? Three indicators can help us answer this question — convenience, cost savings and policy. In other words, if ‘going green’ is becoming more convenient (easier) to participate in, if the movement saves us money in the process and if the movement has become a matter of political policy, then the evidence would suggest that ‘green’ will be with us for a very long time to come.

So how as an industry do we make sense of it all and where do we begin?

Simple… by keeping it simple! National hotel brands have initiated greening initiatives by taking a few small steps. For example, how have many hotel brands reduced their amount of water use in guest rooms by nearly 30%? They put a low-cost postcard in every guest room reminding guests to hang up their towel if they would like to decline laundry service for a day or two. Or, how have hotel brands saved on heating thermal units in all guest rooms? Many have installed motion sensors for both lighting and heating units which in return have saved tens of thousands of dollars in energy costs for each hotel. Can hotels continue to do more? Absolutely — most will tell you that as an industry they have had a good start purely by keeping their initiatives simple in the short term.

Unfortunately, the majority of meeting planners are not participating in green programs at the level of commitment that the hotels are. Why? It seems the movement has inundated the planners with so many angles and terms that the movement has moved from green to many shades of green. Fortunately, the meeting planning industry can look forward to a new set of standards that will help to clarify how it might move forward with more simplistic approach and clarity. That organization, the new GMEPP (Green Meetings and Events Practices Panel) will be a partnership between the Environmental Protection Agency, the Convention Industry Council and the Green Meetings Council and will usher in a more simple set of standards for planners in the future. Until then, consider following four simple steps to greening your meetings and conventions. This will go a long way until the new standards arrive in full force.

• Identify the appropriate green venue or destination that will be chosen
• Identify meeting management suppliers who have green programs
• Outline a general reuse, recycle and carbon offsetting goal by category — transportation, housing, audiovisual, materials, food & beverage, and so on
• Involve and promote your progress to your employees, customers and industry

This is no grand plan, but by following these four simple steps, you will begin to feel the convenience and cost savings that is now starting to become more of the norm than the exception. Make a difference now by keeping it simply… green.

About the Author: Jeff Devine, CMP is ConferenceDirect's Vice President of Conference Management.