Successful Meetings - February 2009 - (Page 54)

Meeting professionals’ awareness of the program puts pressure on other DMOs to join the ranks. —DMAI’s Gehrisch customers that they’re working with a credible organization that met the standards of the industry, or exceeded the standards of the industry,” he says. The accreditation was a “big morale booster for us here,” Vaughan says. “A lot of work went into it.” Rather than uncover many changes that needed to be made, the accreditation process cemented many of the bureau’s operational policies as best practices. “It was flattering to see that we were doing some right things, like we thought we were. It validated what we were doing,” Vaughan says. “And it gives us the opportunity to share that with our board members and our customers, even our counterparts at other CVBs in the industry. I applaud DMAI for the program.” But obtaining the accreditation, which costs $1,000 for members of DMAI and $2,000 for nonmembers as well as a $400 yearly maintenance fee, is not easy. “We worked on it for a good five months,” Vaughan says, adding that a few key staff members acted as “gatekeepers” for the process. Even things that were being done correctly had to conform to DMAI’s standards, he says. But the big payoff is that the metrics DMAI provides go a long way in convincing city leaders to approve budgets. “Our business plans and financial 54 I SM I February 2009 I SuccessfulMeetings.com “ “ plans go through an extensive approval process every year,” Vaughan says. “You can tell people that you’re part of an elite group that has been approved by the governing authority that leads the CVBs. It’s an outsider’s viewpoint.” And with citywide conventions coming to the city in 2009, like Meeting Professionals International’s MeetDifferent, the annual meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers, DMAI’s own annual convention, and The International Association for Exhibitions and Events, Atlanta needs plenty of ammunition when haggling over budgets. Gehrisch says the program is “starting to hit that critical threshold of mass acceptance” and the number of accredited DMOs will approach 90 by March. “In addition to there simply being ‘more’ accredited DMOs to take note of, the DMOs that were early adoptors are really making some noise about their accreditation status,” he says. “They are including the accreditation seal in their marketing materials and promoting it at trade shows. This type of promotion increases meeting professionals’ awareness of the program and, in turn, it puts pressure on other DMOs to join the ranks.” SM http://www.meet-me-in-springfield.com http://www.meet-me-in-springfield.com http://www.SuccessfulMeetings.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - February 2009

Successful Meetings - February 2009 Contents Editor's Letter News Update: Meetings Associations Band Together Education Planner Spotlight Technology Talk Food & Beverage Making Cents of It All Meanwhile, Back at Headquarters Seal of Approval Come Sail Away Making Tracks Places & Spaces Florida’s East Coast Aruba Maui 3 Days in Philadelphia

Successful Meetings - February 2009

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