They all want more convention business, and they’re all going after it in their own unique ways. Taiwan recently held a meetings industry marketing forum to help its folks market on an international level:

Mr. Donald Lu, executive vice-president of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), which helped implement the Marketing Forum, explained the importance of holding such a symposium.

“Taiwan’s service sector in 2005 will account for 70 percent of the economy. The main question now is how to increase the pie? We feel that internationalizing our show industry can help grow our economy,” said Lu.

New West editor Emily Esterson has some interesting things to say about why, when it comes to conventions, Albuquerque so often gets bypassed. She acknowledged that it has safety problems, a dearth of hotels, and a not-so-hopping downtown, but:

So what does Albuquerque have to do to get on the good side of meeting planners? Probably focus on the right kinds of conventions. We’re never going to be Las Vegas or Santa Fe (which has plenty of upscale hotel rooms but not real convention center, go figure), with oodles of walkable streets and interesting sites and great downtown restaurants. What we do have, though, may be more valuable: affordability for meeting planners and conventioneers, lots of interesting science resources, and a great winter climate.

And Philadelphia, of course, is pinning high hopes on the Professional Convention Management Association’s annual conference in January.

The confluence of these three areas’ marketing efforts hitting my desktop today just hit me as interesting. Cities and countries are really starting to scrap for meetings business. But will it mean better deals for planners? We shall see.

The U.S. Patent Office has sent a final rejection letter in the SMI patent claim case, raising big shouts of joy from everyone who does online registration (use 09809595 as the application number if you click through to see the actual notice). Back in 2002, Software Management Inc., a Pittsburgh-based meeting technology provider filed a patent application claiming the invention of 158 meeting-related online processes, and raised a bit of an uproar among online meeting services companies, meeting planners, and meeting industry associations. SMI also sent royalty invoices to 25 organizations that were potential violators of its patentable claims—I wonder how many paid up, anticipating a loss?

For more background on this issue, click here.

For MPI’s white paper on the original filing, click here.

Wondering about your expertise in international dining etiquette? Take this quiz to see if you’re table-ready for Tibet. From the site:

Sure, you know not to eat with your feet on the table at a fancy restaurant. But what about eating at a fancy restaurant in Khartoum in Sudan? Do you bring your camel in with you or leave him outside? Can you be arrested for making that weird straw-sucking noise when you get to the bottom of your soda?

I did pretty well until they snuck in a ringer. (Another big thanks to UNLV professor Patti Shock for the pointer.)

Hoteliers are looking to find common ground among the boomers and Gen Xers who spend most lavishly while on the road—and they’re finding that it’s not easy. Boomers (of which I’m one, barely, though I share a lot with Xers) tend to like

a natural environment, luxurious decor and comfortable accommodations when they travel. Average Gen Xers want an urban environment, trendy decor and functional accommodations.

“It’s a little bit like mixing oil and water,” says Neil Howe, a Virginia-based author, economist and consultant on generational issues. “Every time you try to accentuate your appeal to one generation, you end up rubbing another generation the wrong way.”

If your meeting’s demographics are starting to transition as well, keep in mind that you, too, might have to make some shifts in your meeting planning mindset. While the article says that both age groups like the outdoors, boomers like a nature walk, while Xers are more likely to want mountain biking. And, the article says, the usual golf outing won’t be much of a pull for the younger folks.

If I were a planner, I’d do a gut check when checking the hotel to make sure I’m not letting my own generational preferences get in the way of what my attendees would most likely want. While Xer planners may just love Clarendon Hotel + Suites in Phoenix, which “invested $1.5 million to make it the epitome of Generation X cool,” if the majority of attendees are a little on the gray side, they may want more in the way of comfort than cool.

I can see so many training applications for the VisionStation. Plus, it’s just the coolest looking thing. I want one!

(Thanks to UNLV professor Patti Shock for the pointer.)

I missed the latest “Apprentice” episode, but from this post on E-Venting, it sounds like once again The Donald used event management as the task to set all those wannabes at each other’s throats. It also sounds like one of the groups ran into a pretty common problem: Sponsors who want something that goes against the grain of the event. As the author notes,

Sponsor concessions like this in our industry result in unqualified speakers on stage, inappropriate content, too dense an agenda without enough networking time, and the diversion of resources away from the show’s objectives, and towards a sponsor’s.

And it happens all the time. I like his suggestion that every sponsor should have to manage an event before they could sponsor one, but it’ll never happen. Short of that, I believe it’s up to the event manager to explain why a certain move would run counter to the event’s goals, how it would have the opposite effect than the one the sponsor is looking for, and to offer solutions that would achieve both the event’s and the sponsor’s aims. I don’t know if the “Apprentice” candidates even tried, or if they just rolled over, or if they even understood there was a conflict, but real event managers would have known what to do.