Successful Meetings - January 2008 - (Page 12)

News & Analysis has done,” Merin says. “Travel plays a role in how the rest of the world views America.” Adds Dow, “Our industry has been the Rodney Dangerfield of industries for many years. No one in Congress would think of proposing large-scale legislation that would adversely affect pharmaceuticals, finance, or the gun industry, yet [when travel is made difficult], this industry has been so painfully silent. We’re just trying to increase what gets people to travel and decrease what inhibits it.” An early step in those efforts will likely be a name change. And while the two groups are open to all possibilities, it is unlikely that either’s existing moniker will be retained, Merin says. “No one’s ruled out TIA, but then people could say, ‘what’s the change?’,” Merin notes. “If we have a new name, we can do a product launch that creates an identity and awareness.” —Rayna Katz > Research Leveraging Meetings Spend: Not There Yet When it comes to capturing the total ning meetings on their own,” notes amount of spending an organization Pamela Wynne, VP of operations for does for all of its meetings, there’s good Annapolis, MD-based EMC Venues, who news: More than 95 percent of the 338 handled procurement for 15 years at planners surveyed by SM sister publicaPrinceton, NJ-based Educational Testing tion MeetingNews Services. “True consoliWhich of these best say that their organdation means not only describes your organizaization does an capturing and leveragtion’s program for tracking total meeting spending? adequate job of ing what you spend on sharing spending meetings, but bringing Corporate information and all of the travel spending Planners Excellent Good supplier usage in your organization 40.4 % 33.6% across departments under one umbrella and Poor. Fair so that the organiworking it to your advan7.6% 18.4% zation knows the tage. If you aren’t doing sum of its meetings that, you’re leaving costs, and which money on the table.” Association Planners suppliers are getSome industry assoExcellent 54.8 % ting that money. ciations are focusing on Good Furthermore, the notion of leveraged 28.7% Poor. nearly 70 percent of purchasing for all travel 5.2% Fair 11.3% planners said that within organizations. For their organizations instance, at the annual are doing a better job at capturing the total conference of the National Business Travamount spent on meetings compared to el Association (NBTA) in Boston in late three years ago. So the effort of industry July, there were four educational sessions associations, such as Meeting Profesdevoted to “strategic meeting managesionals International (MPI), to make planment programs” (SMMP). Such a proners think more strategically about meetgram not only captures all meetingsings spending seems to be working. related costs, but also collects enough On the flip side, the research also information so that planners can work with shows that the consolidated-procurement their firm’s procurement managers to effort still has a way to go. When asked leverage the transient-travel agreements whether they must use, or even consider they have with certain suppliers. And to using, the suppliers who’ve given volume underscore the importance of the procureagreements to their organizations’ tranment topic to the future of meeting plansient travel departments, almost 50 perning, much of the leadership of Dallascent of planners say that they had no such based MPI attended and participated in restrictions. these sessions. Sitting on discussion pan“Today, many companies are quick to els was either a meetings manager, travel say, ‘Yes, we’re consolidated,’ but all they manager, or procurement officer from mean is that they have their arms around companies such as Pfizer, Tyson Foods, their total meetings spend and no longer Frito Lay, and Pitney Bowes, who have have 50 administrative assistants planimplemented a formal SMMP process. mimegasite.com JANUARY 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS > Calendar February 2-5 MPI (Meeting Professionals International) Professional Education Conference North America, George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston, TX (972) 702-3000 www.mpiweb.org February 4-6 Training 2008 Conference & Expo, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, GA (508) 743-8505 www.trainingconference.com February 7 DMAI (Destination Marketing Association International) Destinations Showcase, Washington Convention Center, Washington D.C. (202) 296-7888 www.destinationmarketing.org February 19-20 AIME (Asia-Pacific Incentives & Meetings Expo) AIME 2008, Melbourne Exhibition Centre, Melbourne, Australia 61 2 9422 2500 www.aime.com.au 12 http://www.mpiweb.org http://www.trainingconference.com http://www.trainingconference.com http://www.destinationmarketing.org http://www.aime.com.au http://mimegasite.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - January 2008

Successful Meetings - January 2008
Contents
Editor's Note
Associations
Research
Events
Suppliers
Associations
On the Record
Associations
Suppliers
Planner Spotlight
Websites of the Month
Management Matters
Meeting the Law
Personal Success
Mouth for Sale
Food & Beverage
Professional Development
On Site
Pre-Event
Tools of the Trade
Veggie Power
Tennis, Anyone?
Seeing is Believing
The Wild Green Yonder
Game On
Places & Spaces
Galveston & Texas Beaches
Greater Seattle
Singapore
Gurus

Successful Meetings - January 2008