Save the date: 2pm-3pm ET (11am-Noon PT), Thursday, October 14, 2004

OnVantage (which was recently created in the merger of Plansoft and seeUthere) is sponsoring a free webinar for corporate travel and meeting executives called “Best Practices: Managing Corporate Meeting Spend.”

Jay Roseman, Vice President of American Express Corporate Meeting Solutions, North America, Debbie Boschee, CMP, Director, Conference & Meeting Services of Prudential Financial, and Sharon Marsh, CMP, Team Lead, Event Marketing, PeopleSoft, Inc., will review the latest industry trends from the just-released survey, “The Meetings Group: Corporate Meeting Spend Survey 2004.” Topics include tips and best practices on visibility, process control, and cost reduction.

If you are trying to get a handle on increasing meeting expenses, figure out how to implement a preferred-provider strategy, or develop an understanding of your company’s total meeting expenditures, the webinar will help you learn what other corporations include and mandate in their meeting policies and find out if your company is ahead or behind the curve, in terms of collecting and leveraging meeting spending data. This Webinar is based on a benchmark survey conducted in September 2004, exclusively for Corporate Meetings & Incentive, Insurance Conference Planner and Medical Meetings magazines, and published by The Meetings Group, a Primedia Business Group of Publications.

OK, so maybe I have a vested interest in this one since my group did the research it’s based on, but I read the Benchmark Survey, and am looking forward to learning more about how all this works in the real world. Plus, it’s FREE!

Click here to register.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

This post on Business Blog Consulting is an example of why some associations are losing members and the meeting attendees they so desperately need to bolster their bottom lines.

The Public Relations Society of America is asleep at the wheel. The largest PR organization in the world has it’s International Conference coming up Oct. 23 – 26 in New York City.

Look through all 56 pages of the conference program PDF and you won’t find a single session devoted to blogging. This is a fossilzed approach for an organization that considers itself to be ” the architects of change, helping the organizations we work for listen to and respond to the world around us as it evolves and shifts.”…unless you’ve been under a rock, you’d know that blogging has certainly become a viable part of the marketing mix and one PR people can no longer afford to ignore. The industry’s trade organization has an obligation to keep up with developments in the field, not just to cover tired PR tactics.

The same could be said for many meetings industry shows, where the same speakers are trotted out to talk about the same topics in the same way as the year before (and the year before that, the the year before that…). If associations want to remain relevant to their members, they have to stay on top of new developments in their industry. Yet so few really do.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

This post on Business Blog Consulting is an example of why some associations are losing members and the meeting attendees they so desperately need to bolster their bottom lines.

The Public Relations Society of America is asleep at the wheel. The largest PR organization in the world has it’s International Conference coming up Oct. 23 – 26 in New York City.

Look through all 56 pages of the conference program PDF and you won’t find a single session devoted to blogging. This is a fossilzed approach for an organization that considers itself to be ” the architects of change, helping the organizations we work for listen to and respond to the world around us as it evolves and shifts.”…unless you’ve been under a rock, you’d know that blogging has certainly become a viable part of the marketing mix and one PR people can no longer afford to ignore. The industry’s trade organization has an obligation to keep up with developments in the field, not just to cover tired PR tactics.

The same could be said for many meetings industry shows, where the same speakers are trotted out to talk about the same topics in the same way as the year before (and the year before that, the the year before that…). If associations want to remain relevant to their members, they have to stay on top of new developments in their industry. Yet so few really do.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

According to an article from American Demographics, “If there is one asset that is most important to Generation X parents, it’s time. While Gen X dads are spending less time with their kids than Gen X moms, both are spending more time with their children than baby boomer parents. In short, Gen X parents are putting family first .”

So if you have a lot of Gen Xers in your attendee mix, expect to hear more requests for family programming. If you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of kid-friendly events, this article from Association Meetings should help.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

From this week’s edition of MeetingsNet Extra:

With group business comprising 20 percent of Florida’s tourism market–and up to 30 percent of South Florida’s visitors–the health of the area’s meeting business is at the forefront of Florida’s hospitality community in the wake of the four devastating hurricanes that slammed Florida over the past eight weeks.

“I think the real impact of these storms is going to be in the longer term,” says Peter Yesawich, chairman and CEO of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, an Orlando-based travel marketing, advertising, and public relations firm. “Many will now consciously avoid booking destinations in Florida in that August-to-September window. I think the memory of disruption is one that will not fade quickly for meeting planners.”

That also seems to have been the consensus from the show floor at ITME, according to an article in yesterday’s Miami Herald, which reported that “the expo revealed ample hurricane jitters, with some meeting planners ruling out a Florida event during hurricane season.” More optimistic tourism officials said they were fielding inquiries about damage to area hotels, but remained confident that in the longer term, meetings will return.

For a roundup of what tourism officials in Florida and the Caribbean are doing to avoid a meeting exodus, the current status of hotels in some hard-hit areas, and links to Web sites that provide regularly updated hurricane-related hospitality news, click here.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

Today’s buzzword, courtesy of Buzzwhack.com:

Candidate delays: Radio traffic reporter’s term for the snarled traffic caused by presidential candidates’ motorcades entering or leaving an area. Heard more and more frequently in battleground states as Nov. 2 nears.

And something to ask about if you have meeting dates in the next several weeks in campaign-heavy states.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

A couple of stories on hospitality labor strikes are in the news today:

Atlantic City Strike Enters Fourth Day; Hotels Closing Guest Room Floors, Not Able to Provide Housekeeping and Other Services (Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via hotel-online.com)

As the strike between 10,000 casino-hotel union members and seven of the city’s 12 gaming halls enters its fourth day today - the longest strike in the resort’s casino history - many are beginning to wonder just how long it will last.

And how much the standoff will end up costing.

After watching The Apprentice the other night (after swearing to myself I wouldn’t do that again) and seeing that The Donald’s hair has gotten even swoopier, I just had to share this photo of a dog emulating Trump’s combover. Sorry! Next post will have something to do with meeting planning, I promise.

(Pic via Wood NewsRadio.)

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.