I recently returned from a round of advisory council meetings with planners for all types of associations from government groups to sports groups. While they all agreed that they were paying closer attention to the bottom line and rate negotiations, not one of them was cancelling face-to-face meetings. Where there was interest in video-conferencing, it was as an additional membership benefit, usually to provide more educational opportunities.

Registration for our own conference and trade show, the 2010 Connect Marketplace in Louisville, Ky., Aug. 12-15, is way up over last year.

Kind of like spring flowers, signs of optimism are popping up all over. The latest is the news from The Walt Disney Company that it has decided to go ahead with its first new hotel in seven years. The entertainment and attractions giant might be a better barometer of the economy than the ups and downs of Wall Street.

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will feature 1,120 suites and 864 traditional rooms, with a design theme based on four of the company’s most popular animated movies (The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Finding Nemo and Cars). The resort will be priced as a “value” hotel, similar to Disney’s All-Star and Pop Century resorts, a sign that Disney expects visitors to continue their frugal spending habits.

Another recent indicator of optimism arrived with Benchmark Hospitality’s annual list of top 10 meeting trends at the end of March. Trend #1 was “Cautiously optimistic for 2010, with Strong Pacing for 2011!” One of the leading privately held hospitality management companies in the U.S., Benchmark said that the overall pace for advance bookings in 2011 is up significantly, a highly positive signal that a recovery is on.