To find out, check out 10 Safety Mistakes Hotel Managers Make and How to Avoid Them, by Diana S. Barber, Esq.

The stripped-down version below could easily be reshaped into questions every planner should ask of their hotel during the site inspection process.

1. Never cut back on security personnel.
2. Have an evacuation route posted in your meeting room space.
3. Increase lighting throughout your property.
4. Continuously train employees.
5. Comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards.
6. Keep back-up data off property.
7. Install phones in fitness centers.
8. Perform background checks on employees before hiring.
9. Check detection devices regularly.
10. Check on emergency equipment periodically.

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According to an article in the Miami Herald, business travel can be dangerous to your waistline, especially with the usual airport dine-and-dash: “If you travel just five times a year and overeat by 2,800 calories each round trip — pizza, a few sodas, a candy bar or peanuts — that’s more than four pounds gained every year.” So that’s what happened?! I was blaming it on the washing machine.

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Cute item on errtravel that starts off: “Have you ever had a business trip where everything - and I mean everything - went perfectly? Me neither. Yet while paging through a periodical that targets business travelers, I noticed that the people in the ads appear to be on trips that couldn’t be more pleasant.

“What gives?”

He goes on to question whether companies are setting their customers up to be disappointed when they show their products and services in the best possible light, especially when the person’s experience is a lot worse than they expected–then the marketing materials actually make a bad experience seem worse, since expectations were so high. Good point, and one that meeting planners might want to think about. Another one: At what point does hype become meaningless noise? I know I don’t even see phrases like “world’s leading company” and “the nation’s finest” anymore when I go through press releases.

Then again, who in their right mind wouldn’t try to make their product, or their meeting, sound like the best thing since sliced bread?

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As is obvious from this article from hotelinteractive.com on the First Annual Meetings Industry Trend Summit held at Mohegan Sun recently, “It’s a safe bet to say the free wheeling days of the last 1990s are a thing of the past as those operating the purse strings are taking a greater interest in finding ways to lower meeting costs through such efforts as consolidation and procurement.”

Calling meetings consolidation “inevitable,” Ed Rigsbee, CSP, President, Rigsbee International, said that “41 percent of companies that hold meetings consolidate meeting expenditures for negotiating purposes and that number is only expected to increase.” Also, he said, “Technology is enabling the executive suite to look closer at things,” according to the article.

It worries me that, in the quest to do more for less, companies may overlook the fact that sometimes the “best deal” will turn out to be a really bad idea when it comes to meetings. We see it already when it comes to medical meetings, where folks are afraid to use any facility with the words “spa” or “resort” in the name—even if AnyResort & Spa is actually offering more for less in terms of overall attendee experience.

Let’s face it: The meetings and events world is too nuanced to be viewed realistically as a commodity—it’s just a very different beast than a paperclip or a chair. That’s why I disagree with Scott Eames, Manager Business Development with American Express Corporate Meeting Solutions, when he says in the article, “Procurement allows companies to strip away the levels and find true value for services. It all fits in concert with travel.”

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Beer bombs: This can’t be for real, but according to an article from Cleveland.com:

Just in time for the holiday, the FBI issued a warning last week to be on the lookout for booby-trapped beer coolers and floating garbage.

The alert warned to ‘look out for plastic-foam containers, inner tubes and other waterborne flotsam,’ because they could be rigged to blow up on contact around beaches, harbors and marinas. It warned about marker buoys, too. Watch out for them.

OK then, let’s all be sure to check to make sure there’s no twist to our twist-offs, no plastique in our plastic floaters, and no jetsom in our flotsam.

Hottest new toy in Iraq: a chubby, hip-swaying doll of Saddam Hussein that dances to the tune of “Hippy Hippy Shake.” According to yahoo.com:

The owner of the store started offering the dolls shortly after Saddam’s regime was overthrown in April last year.

A Turkish traveling salesmen turned up with the Chinese-made puppets, also featuring dancing Osama bin Ladens, Fidel Castros and George W. Bushes, and he placed an order.

At first it was the hip-shaking Osamas that sold best, but slowly Iraqis grew less fearful of ridiculing their deposed president and started buying the Saddam ones too.

Now for a little fireworks fun!

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