Incentive - September 2008 - (Page 64) after midnight. “I nearly passed out,” recalls Cloud. His team brainstormed the next day, and worked out a deal to take over the pool deck of the Loews Miami Beach Hotel, but the scramble was invisible to attendees. “I don’t want them to ever know that there had been an issue,” says Cloud, who has dealt with wildlife from stingrays to pop stars. No matter what goes on behind the scenes, he says, “You want every single person to walk away saying it’s the best event ever.” HOW TO SURVIVE A CHANGE OF VENUE “When you’re given lemons, make lemonade,” advises United Incentives’ President Michael Hurwitz, a 25-year industry veteran and former president of the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives. This was a lesson he learned on a trip to Cannes, France, in 2000 during the height of the celebrity-studded film festival. Looking for an affordable and memorable Mediterranean experience for a group of dealers from Hunter Douglas, United had chartered a new ship from Star Clipper to take the top earners on a six-night cruise to ports along the French Riviera. “A few months prior to the sailing, we were informed that the ship would not be ready in time. So here we were with 400 people and no place to go,” he recalls. He called on longtime friend Lenny Spangberg of LSO International, an eventmanagement company with years of experience in France and Monaco, who managed to find rooms for everyone at the five-star Hotel Martinez. Meanwhile, Star Clipper was at work redeeming itself—the company convinced a competitor to rearrange the schedule on one of its ships, allowing the group to have a three-night cruise. Star Clipper also offered all the qualifiers individual seven-night Caribbean cruises at a time of their convenience. Remarkably, the changes came without significant cost increase to United. To show its appreciation for the client’s patience, United rented out the picturesque medieval village of Mougins for an evening and threw a cocktail party in the main square. The guests returned from the trip starry-eyed, and never missed the original itinerary. “They are still working with us,” says Hurwitz. HOW TO SURVIVE A WARDROBE MALFUNCTION Sometimes incentive planners have the responsibility of saving guests from lifethreatening embarrassment. On the last day of a trip to New Zealand that Creative Travel Planners (CTP), of Woodland Hills, Calif., had designed for a large association, one guest was caught underdressed. He had set out clothing before getting in the shower—an outfit that his wife dutifully packed up, and which was taken to the airport, along with all his other clothes, when the scheduled bag pull arrived at 6 a.m. After being informed of the shirtless situation, the CTP staff worked with the hotel to locate some spare employee togs in the correct size, launder them and deliver the new outfit to the guest in time for him to make his flight. Whether the problem is big or small, says CTP Vice President Gabriel Haigazian, “you drop everything for your client and save the day.” DISASTER PLANNING 101 Into each life, a little rain must fall. But on an incentive trip, planners usually hope that’s the worst that will happen. While trips are designed to provide a picture-perfect experience, everyone in the travel business knows that things can go wrong, and do. From plane crashes and pandemics to disorderly conduct and marriage proposals, every individual has a story that sticks with him or her. “It’s horrifying. You see your career floating behind your eyes,” shudders Hurwitz, 64 | Incentive | September 2008 | incentivemag.com http://incentivemag.com
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