I know the day before Thanksgiving is supposed to be the heaviest of the year, but for my family and I, traveling to visit the in-laws this past week was a snap.

First, we hit zero traffic driving into Boston Logan. We left several hours to spare for our 9:30 am flight, just because, but zoomed right in, found two parking spaces right next to each other and a stone’s throw from the door to the terminal. A TSA agent came up to us as we were perusing the flight board and ushered us through the VIP line, not that there was anyone in the regular security line, so getting through that was nothing. The gate area was empty, the flight not overly crowded, and the Charlotte, N.C., airport was the least crowded I’ve ever seen it.

While heading back last night was a little less of a breeze, it was still nothing compared to the usual business flights I’ve had recently in terms of airport crowds and security lines. That little aspiring soccer player who spent the two-hour flight practicing her sport on the back of my seat, well, I wasn’t quite as thankful for her as I was for the ease of flying, but the whole thing was remarkably stress-free for Thanksgiving travel.

I wonder if people really did stay home in droves this year (or drive instead of flying), or if we just lucked out completely? While it was great for us, I worry that if people truly aren’t flying even to see relatives at the holidays, it doesn’t bode well for that annual convention now, does it?

From Gizmodo: What you can expect from in-flight WiFi. The first point is the key one to me:

Your last bastion of Internet Free peace is gone. Forever. You’ll be forced to work on flights instead of valium napping or reading comic books, and your boss will expect you to be checking email. Time to plan a camping trip.

Sigh.

Oh those librarians! One look at the Dewey Decimators, the winners of the 2007 Medical Library Association meeting book cart drill team competition, and, if you’re like me, you’ll wonder what else they do at their meetings:

For more, check out Anne T-V’s blog, where you’ll find more than you probably wanted to know about library cart drill teams. Thanks for the pointer, Anne!

Is there anything here you could adapt for your next meeting? I tell you, if the American Society of Business Publication Editors did a keyboard band competition, or a notebook-flipping drill team—I don’t know what, exactly, but there must be something interesting we could do—I’d join up.

Well, the results of our survey on how the economy is affecting association meetings are in. Read ‘em and weep:

When it comes to the fall of 2008, association meeting planners are reporting almost a 50/50 split: 46 percent who participated in a recent AM survey say their attendance held steady at meetings that took place since the financial markets began fishtailing in September, while 49 percent say their attendance was down 5 percent or more. And a lucky 5 percent actually saw some gains for their annual meetings this fall. But few expect next year’s results to be as relatively rosy.

Seventy-two percent said they expected to see attendance slip at least 5 percent for their 2009 annual meeting, more than half are tightening their belts in anticipation of significantly reduced sponsorship revenues, and 40 percent are expecting a 5 percent or greater reduction in exhibition-related revenues. Ouch. As one respondent said, “Many of our members pay their own way. I’m getting feedback about rising airline tickets and job layoffs. Money is tight, and it’s affecting all layers of meeting planning.”

Not everyone is expecting the worst, though. Some are expecting the economic crisis may actually have a positive affect on their meetings because of the “importance of staying on top of changes, and staying in the consumer top of mind,” as one respondent says. For the 6 percent who are expecting a painless year next year, they say their outlook isn’t wishful thinking; vendors are using limited funds to reach their targeted market, they say, and their organizations are more focused on better defining the value of the program to attendees and suppliers. And, of course, “People need to network more when the economy is bad,” as one respondent pointed out. This optimistic group is anticipating gains mostly in attendance (85 percent), though about 14 percent think they also will increase sponsorships and exhibits.

Those who are preparing for a tougher year are also doing what they can to mitigate the damages, mainly by increasing marketing efforts (73 percent), negotiating lower food and beverage minimums (38 percent), and cutting services and/or programs they usually offer at their annual meetings (38 percent). Holding more virtual meetings also is an option for those looking to cut meeting costs, with 38 percent saying they plan to replace some live meetings with virtual meetings or conference calls. Other cost-cutting options they plan to implement include changing to a more affordable destination or facility (35 percent), eliminating some small meetings (22 percent), and co-locating with an affiliated organization’s meeting (14 percent). Some planners wrote in that they were planning to cut costs in AV, F&B, and special events; others by shortening the duration of their meeting.

On the positive side, many also were looking to find ways to build new revenue streams for their 2009 meetings. Among the new sponsorship possibilities being tossed around are creating virtual trade shows, webcasts, and match-making services. To attract more attendees, planners say they are more strongly promoting to regional and local attendees, promoting more heavily to African American and Hispanic attendees, expanding their marketing efforts internationally, offering early-bird discounts, and using social media outlets (“which are free or inexpensive,” as one respondent noted) to promote the annual meeting.

Does this align with what you’re seeing/feeling/anticipating/dreading? (Many, many thanks to all of you who took the time to take our survey. You are the best.)

We all know about guard dogs, but have you ever thought about getting some chickens to keep the peace at your next meeting? According to this video, you could do worse, especially if you have a livestock component to your trade show floor ;>

If you want to be pretty much guaranteed to be pulled out of line and hand-frisked, go ahead and take some of this luggage from Pink Wolf to the airport on your next trip. It also comes in knife and axe. (Via BoingBoing.)

And on a totally off-topic note: Have you checked out the Shiba Inu puppycam? I had forgotten I’d tuned into it earlier and was sitting here typing away when I started hearing whimpers and scampering puppy paws. Took me a while to figure out I had minimized the puppycam screen but still had it up. They just make me smile, and who couldn’t use a smile on a Monday?

I love this project: A group of three students from The George Washington University’s online Accelerated Master of Tourism Administration program are learning about putting on a webinar by—you guessed it—putting on a webinar. The students—Arleen M. Rivera, Kristen Butler, and Charlene Selbee—are working with the Professional Convention Management Association and Tyra Hilliard, Esq., CMP, their George Washington University faculty sponsor, to produce what sounds like a terrific webinar on a terrific topic.

It’s called “Becoming an E-vent Expert: How to Utilize Technological Diversity in a Multigenerational Atmosphere,” and it will feature our technology columnist and one of my favorite e-experts, Jim Spellos of Meeting U., along with Michelle Lapierre, Sr. Director, Customer Relationship Marketing, Marriott. According to a press release (yes, this is a professional production that comes complete with promotional efforts!), this “dynamic duo of experienced professionals” will teach students how to:

-Market individual technological skills to potential employers
-Identify communication technology preferences amongst members of different generations
-Contribute ideas on how to properly manage technological knowledge and use it efficiently and effectively in the workplace
-Determine ways to maximize productivity in a multigenerational work environment

Save the date: Thursday, December 4th, at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (if you miss the live version, it will be available for download later). You can register here for the webinar, which is free to PCMA members and nonmembers, students and faculty. (Kristen assures me that while it was developed for students and faculty, everyone is welcome to attend. I plan to sign up.)

Thanks be to enterprising students, encouraging faculty, cooperative and terrific speakers, and a very supportive meetings community organization! Good luck.

And get to know these faces and names. Something tells me we’ll be hearing a lot more from them as they continue along their career paths.

Charlene Selbee

Bill Marriott is trying to anticipate some possible backlash about California’s Proposition 8–opposing gay marriage–on Marriott properties, it seems, with a recent post on his blog.

In case you hadn’t heard about it, here’s some background on the brouhaha. Joan Eisenstodt recently wondered whether Prop 8’s passage, and the Mormon Church’s presumed role in its passage, might splash back on Utah as a whole. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone might hold it against the Marriott chain due to the religion of its founding family.

Bill’s blog post reads, in part:

As many of you may know I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some might conclude given my family’s membership in the Mormon Church that our company supported the recent ballot initiative to ban same sex marriage in California. This is simply untrue. Marriott International is a public company headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and is not controlled by any one individual or family. Neither I, nor the company, contributed to the campaign to pass Proposition 8.

I for one am getting really tired of hearing about how AIG, after getting a hefty bailout (again), is sending its top execs off to a “junket”. And yet, here we are.

For a different point of view than what we’ve already heard, check out this post from Tim Reason on CFO.com. I especially thought this part was relevant:

Now clearly, every company should be watching appearances and avoiding executive junkets, and no doubt some of those conferences deserved to be canceled. But let’s remember, too, that the business of America is business…

It’s one thing to be a careful steward of taxpayer money. But if Congress makes legitimate business marketing the target of this sort of asinine, knee-jerk populism, it’s not going to save taxpayers money, it is going to put AIG out of business. And, if it isn’t careful, airlines, hotels, taxi companies, restaurants, meeting planners, caterers, and plenty of other businesses will go under too.

Roger Dow of the Travel Industry Association says in this article that the election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president should signal good things for inbound international travel. From the article:

Dow noted that throughout the presidential campaign, Obama stressed the need to fix the economy, create new opportunities and repair the damaged image of the U.S. around the world. Travel and tourism, Dow said, can easily be part of the solution because it is a proven engine of economic development and contributes significantly to job creation in all 50 states. That, he said, is a “huge plus.”…and he noted that as a U.S. senator, Obama was a co-sponsor of the Travel Promotion Act, which would establish a fund to promote the U.S. to overseas travelers.

Though the bill passed the House, it stalled in the Senate. Dow said backers would be seeking to incorporate it into an economic stimulus package “because that is exactly what it does.”