According to the recently released Zagat 2007 U.S. Hotels, Resorts and Spas Survey, my own pet peeve—poor service—is also the bane of most of those surveyed, too. Other dislikes?

“Dirty, small, bad” rooms were cited by 22% of surveyors while 12% pointed at their noisy fellow guests.

Or any small business owner, I would say (having been one myself a few times). By Mark Haas, president, Research and Organization Management:

My client calls me,
“Six figures if you come now.”
My alarm clock rings.

I have reached the top,
president of my own firm,
but where’s the toner?

The consultant’s joy:
working only half a day.
Which twelve hours is it?

Pack my suitcase for
exotic destinations.
Look, a Red Roof Inn!

Arriving slowly,
like a turtle in winter.
My receivables.

Thanks to Jennifer Warwick and her New Charm School blog for the pointer!

You’ve probably grown accustomed to paying licensing fees for the music you play, but can you imagine doing the same for the food your attendees eat? It could happen, if this chef succeeds in his quest to get recipes considered as intellectual property.

OK, so every meeting planner hears complaints—why not do something fun with them, like turn them into entertainment? Want some inspiration? Check out this video of the Helsinki Complaints Choir:

If you don’t want to fan the fires of anyone ticked off about something they don’t like about the meeting, why not have some fun with the frustrations of the profession the meeting’s for, or even the hassle of travel, and have someone sing it to a known tune. You could even ask the audience to do a singalong and project the words on a screen, if it’s that kind of crowd. Sometimes, just voicing frustration goes a long way toward alleviating it. Plus it would just be hilarious. Can you imagine if MPI or PCMA collected all the complaints planners get regularly, especially the truly ridiculous ones, then did this in an opening session? I bet it would be a smash hit.

I guess it’s OK to announce it publicly now that it’s official—I will be the new editor of Association Meetings magazine! I’m really excited about it, especially since I find the association world so fascinating. I will miss working on Medical Meetings, particularly all the wonderful people I’ve had the priviledge of getting to know in the world of continuing medical education, but this will be a great new direction for me and, I hope, for Association Meetings.

So, if there are any association meeting planners reading this, please give me a call (978-448-0377), drop me an e-mail, or leave a comment below if there are issues you’d like to see us cover in the magazine. What keeps you up at night? What do you want to know more about? How can we make your job easier/more productive/just plain more?

This article in USA Today outlines the steep hotel rate increases we’ve all been noticing in many major U.S. cities this year—and how they’re predicted to continue rising, albeit not quite as steeply, in 2007. This is, of course, driving transient and individual business travelers to look outside the usual chains when booking their rooms, but I wonder if it won’t drive some meeting attendees to do likewise?

While I stayed at an extremely budget-conscious hotel during a recent trip to a Baltimore meeting because everything at the headquarters hotel and everything else nearby was sold out or ridiculously expensive ($400+ and/or a three- to five-night minimum stay? In Baltimore? I still don’t get it), I would seriously consider returning to it the next time I’m in town for a meeting. For less than half the cost, a little inconvenience was worth it. I doubt I’m alone in this one, especially since so many companies are squeezing every dime these days when it comes to paying for meetings-related travel expenses. For association meetings, this could be especially harmful to the bottom line if enough people decide to say “enough is enough” and stay somewhere cheaper than what you could get in negotiated rates.

Will it drive more association meetings to smaller, less expensive cities? Especially now that so many have some pretty good convention centers, this could end up being pretty good for the little guys. Unless, of course, they start raising their rates, too. We shall see.

P.S. Sorry for the silence this week. It’s been crazy busy around here lately. I’ll try to catch up over the next several days.