According to the Chicago Sun-Times, there’s a guy named Craig Smith who says gas prices could hit $5 a gallon by next year. And, it says,

if terrorists successfully strike a major Middle East oil field, Americans might end up paying $10 a gallon — about $110 to fill a Ford Focus’ 11-gallon tank.

We’re already seeing energy surcharges starting to pop up on everything from taxis to hotels. If the price of gas goes up as high as Smith predicts, the world will change. We Americans are like crack addicts when it comes to energy, and unless we kick our habit (highly unlikely), we could be in for some major shakeups. How many of our airlines could survive? And that’s just one obvious fallout.

Hey, how are we doing on those hydrogen cells, anyway? Haven’t heard much about that lately.

The U.K.’s National Meetings Week, scheduled this year for Oct. 3 to 7, looks to be gaining some traction. Now in its fifth year, “has now received support from highly influential MPs such as Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, and Conservative members that include Oliver Letwin. Over 77 other MPs join Charles Kennedy and cross party leading figures in his support for the annual campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the power of face to face meetings and highlights the economic contribution that the industry as a whole brings to the nation,” says the press release.

OK, U.S., we can do this, too. Planners, hoteliers, industry associations, everyone, let’s start hounding our local government officials to support a similar effort here in the U.S.

The Market Metrix Hospitality Index for the second quarter of this year found Ritz-Carlton ranked highest in customer satisfaction among hotels, and JetBlue among airlines. Somehow, this fails to shock me. Guest satisfaction overall is still declining, though, as is hotel guest loyalty.

The study also found that guests’ experience with the hotel staff is key to retaining/gaining loyalty: “Hotel guests who report having a problem with a hotel staff member are 43 percentage points less likely to return to that hotel than guests who did not experience a problem.”

It doesn’t say if the reason why women business travelers have more problems than men, but I’d hazard a guess that this also is related to how women are treated by staff, as opposed to their male counterparts, especially since the most likely to report a problem are 40-something females traveling for business. As someone who falls into this demographic, I have noticed that men tend to get better treatment than women—or is it just that women expect more, and so are more easily disappointed when the service doesn’t measure up?

Unless you’re as sick of reading about the Brookings report on cities and convention centers as I am, you might find this examination worth a read. At least it has lots of pretty charts and graphs.

Personally, I think it depends on the location–some cities will be able to justify the expense of building/expanding their centers, others won’t. If they didn’t do their homework before committing the budgets and based projections on high hopes and pipe dreams, well, I hope they enjoy their beautiful big empty boxes. If they did, they should get the business they expect. This ain’t rocket science, though sometimes it seems as if it costs almost as much as the space shuttle…

According to an article on hotelnewsresource.com, a recent HSMAI survey of those who pre-registered for its fifth annual Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International’s Affordable Meetings Mid-America show April 6-7, 2005 at Chicago’s Navy Pier:

the majority of the respondents (53.7 percent) expect to plan more meetings in 2005 and beyond. Most of those respondents anticipate planning three – 10 more meetings (one respondent was a particular stand-out by citing an increase of double the number of meetings planned last year – for a total of 400 in 2005).

Additionally, nearly half of the respondents indicated that they have increased budgets to plan meetings.

Oh good, good times are here again, just in time for the return of the seller’s market! I hope those setting the budgets are factoring in the probability that their room rates will be going up, rather than basing budgets on recent history.

Hard to believe that Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine is turning 25 this year! The editors have put together an excellent compilation of nostalgia, trends, perspectives, and other fun stuff for those of us who like to stroll down memory lane.

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Forget rates, accessibility, staff, and F&B costs–according to this survey by YPB&R, both corporate and association planners said the thing about which they are most concerned is “making the agenda relevant.”

We’ve come a long way, babies! This tells me that more planners are looking at their meetings strategically, and at their jobs as more than dealing with logistics. We are entering the era of relevant content, and that is a very good thing.

Update: Rich at the TSMI blog has some interesting things to say about this–check out his take.

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According to a recent study by Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown and Russell, things are looking good for meetings. “The meeting market is likely to grow in the next 12 months. Corporate meeting planners are planning to book an additional 4.2 off-site meetings in the next 12 months, while association meeting planners are planning to book an additional 1.2 off-site meetings.”

The top 10 factors corporate meeting planners say they are extremely or very concerned with are (in descending order):
* Making the meeting agenda relevant
* Convention services staff
* Room rates
* Accessibility of the destination by air
* Cost of food, beverage, entertainment at the destination
* Cost of flying to the destination
* Availability of low cost air carrier service to the destination
* Hotels or resort security services
* Internet access from all meeting rooms
* Meeting attendance projections
* AV company services
* Adequacy of high speed Internet service

The top 10 factors association meeting planners say they are extremely or very concerned with are (in descending order):
* Making the agenda relevant
* Room rates
* Convention services staff
* Meeting attendance projections
* Cost of food, beverage and entertainment at the destination
* Accessibility of the destination by air
* Cost of flying to the destination
* The popularity of the destination
* Availability of low cost air carrier service to the destination
* Availability of new/interesting speakers
* The popularity of the hotel/resort
* Accessibility of the destination by car

The study also found that attendees are still demanding, and planners are still stressed out. Not a shocker. Also, the report found that planners are using hotel Web sites more than ever, and they really like online meeting room floor plans, meeting room capacity charts, and detailed destination maps.

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Association Meetings editor Regina McGee wants to know what you think about how all today’s security and political environment in the U.S. has affected international attendees’ participation in U.S.-based meetings.

If your event draws out-of-the-U.S. attendees, please take a minute to complete this six-question survey.

Thanks!

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Rich of TSMR blogging fame has posted some incredible stuff while I was out stuffing myself on T-day turkey:

Michael Hough’s ideas on how to increase the recognition and lobbying power of the tradeshow industry. Idea #1: ” Combine IAEM, SISO, PCMA, CEIR and CIC plus the convention council of ASAE into one really powerhouse association called the International Association of Event Organizers (IAEO) and locate its headquarters in Washington, DC. I would recommend that Gary Shapiro be the volunteer Chairman of IAEO and that Jim Bracken be its full time President.”

The item that got Hough’s dander up was Rich’s discussion of how up to half of the Chinese delegation is pulling out of the Computer Electronics Show due to visa issues. As Rich says, “This is bad. Real bad.”

For more, go to MeetingsNet’s home page and type “visa” into the search box. Here are a few to get you started:

New Visa Regs Hit International Attendees (May 2004)

Visa Hassles Hurt Meetings (June 2004)

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

Rich of TSMR blogging fame has posted some incredible stuff while I was out stuffing myself on T-day turkey:

Michael Hough’s ideas on how to increase the recognition and lobbying power of the tradeshow industry. Idea #1: ” Combine IAEM, SISO, PCMA, CEIR and CIC plus the convention council of ASAE into one really powerhouse association called the International Association of Event Organizers (IAEO) and locate its headquarters in Washington, DC. I would recommend that Gary Shapiro be the volunteer Chairman of IAEO and that Jim Bracken be its full time President.”

The item that got Hough’s dander up was Rich’s discussion of how up to half of the Chinese delegation is pulling out of the Computer Electronics Show due to visa issues. As Rich says, “This is bad. Real bad.”

For more, go to MeetingsNet’s home page and type “visa” into the search box. Here are a few to get you started:

New Visa Regs Hit International Attendees (May 2004)

Visa Hassles Hurt Meetings (June 2004)

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