“We think it’s time that in-flight entertainment does more than simply distract you,” says InteraXon CEO Ariel Garten. “We create in-flight experiences that offer value even after the flight is over.” The suite of applications InteraXon created for the conference includes a meditation trainer that helps travelers relax and an EEG Golf trainer that helps users improve their concentration, focus and their golf games.

The system measures the brain’s electrical output and sorts them into waves associated with relaxation and beta waves associated with concentration. As the users relax or focus their thoughts, their brainwaves become the interface with which they control the game.

“Airline passengers are saying they want a more engaging experience or they want to rest comfortably. InteraXon’s thought-controlled computing offers tremendous potential for delivering on both of those needs,” says Rod Jones, executive director of Aerospace Ontario, one of the show’s organizers. interaxon.ca

Nasher Sculpture Center in the Dallas Arts District

In the same way that cities are building medical and science facilities to attract meetings to their destinations, some cities are revamping or creating arts districts in an effort to attract more tourism and group business.

Dallas has created the Dallas Arts District, now the biggest such district in the nation at 68 acres, which has museums, performing arts centers, churches and an arts school. Pritzker Prize-winning architects designed four of the buildings, and the district fits neatly into the larger downtown landscape near dozens of hotels and thousands of square feet of convention space. In North Carolina, Charlotte’s Wells Fargo Cultural Campus brings museums and green space to a city known for banking and car racing. And Kansas City, which is home to internationally known museums including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, unveils a $413 million Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts next fall. The center will be near the new Kansas City Power & Light District, popular for dining and nightlife, and the Crossroads Arts District.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. (Courtesy Kansas City CVA)

Art associations, which represent everything from architecture and painting to literature and conceptual art, have a number of meetings and events nationwide every year. Many of the planners of those events want destinations for their conferences that appeal to the interests of their members. Pamela Meister is the executive director of the Southeastern Museums Conference. She helps select the site for the group’s annual meeting each year, which brings about 200 museum professionals together from 12 Southeastern states, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. “We are a little unusual because the most important thing for us is the local museum community,” says Meister. “A really important goal of our annual meeting is to visit the local museums. Beyond that, we’re much more like a regular association and we’re looking at good meeting space, headquarter hotel and so on.”

“When we’re selecting a site we insist that we’re invited by the museum community,” she says. In 2009, Meister took the conference to Charleston, W.Va., where she organized events at the newly renovated West Virginia State Museum, the governor’s mansion and the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, which includes an art museum, science center and performing arts center. Next month, the SEMC Conference takes place in Baton Rouge, La., where attendees will have a private tour of the Louisiana State University Museum of Art and will work on a project at a local historic house museum. A number of events will be held at local museums. “Museums are fabulous event spaces and all of our members will certainly tell you that,” says Meister.

Niki de Saint Phalle's "Firebird" on Charlotte's Wells Fargo Cultural Campus (Gary O'Brien)

Leaders of Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) addressed the importance of the arts for destinations at its annual convention earlier this summer in Hollywood, Fla. “One of the most important tasks of a destination marketing organization is to thoroughly understand, market, and nurture the programs, activities and events that give their community a true sense of place,” says Michael Gehrisch, DMAI president and CEO. At the annual convention, Gehrisch announced a new partnership between DMAI and Americans for the Arts (AFTA). The goal of the partnership is to improve the relationship between DMOs and cultural institutions within their cities.

Dan Fenton, former DMAI board chair and Team San Jose CEO, says, “Having all partners of a community working together on behalf of the visitor, to create ease and a valuable experience, is a shared goal for all of us.” At next year’s DMAI convention in New Orleans, one DMO will be honored as the Arts Destination of the Year, recognizing that city for effectively and innovatively using the arts to market its community.

“One of the strongest ways to reinforce a destination’s brand is by weaving a community’s cultural-heritage story into its overall community message, effectively developing a truly distinctive locale,” said Gehrisch. Eligibility requirements and application information for DMOs will be available later this year on the DMAI website.

The economic downturn wreaked havoc on the finances of many cities and states across the country. California issued 29,000 IOUs last year to residents awaiting income tax refunds. Clayton County, Ga., outside of Atlanta suspended its bus services in March because of financial woes. Street lamps are being turned off to save energy. Potholes are going unfilled. Municipal staffs are being cut.

One way cities can raise additional revenue to help bridge budget shortfalls is to raise travel taxes for everything from hotel occupancy (or bed) taxes to rental car, airport, meal and other taxes. These taxes are assessed primarily on visitors, rather than residents.

Raising travel taxes can be an effective revenue generator and is usually popular with local citizens since the taxes are paid primarily by out-of-towners. But for cities that rely on tourism and conventions, raising taxes too much can hurt that all-important visitor business.

Politically Popular Strategy

Bonnie Wallsh, CMP, CMM, chief strategist with Bonnie Wallsh Associates meeting management consulting firm, says that she hasn’t heard of any cities that are decreasing travel taxes. “Cities and states are in dire need of money, so I’m seeing a growing trend toward increasing travel taxes. In effect, these are taxes on non-voters, and most politicians are very nervous right now.”

In Charlotte, N.C., city leaders didn’t want to require local citizens to foot the bill for the new NASCAR Hall of Fame, so they raised the hotel occupancy tax by one-half percent to finance it, says Wallsh.

Los Angeles is now planning an increase in hotel occupancy taxes. Hotel owners have proposed a 1.5 percent hike in the city’s current 14 percent occupancy tax to help finance more tourism and convention marketing and promotion for the city.

The fee would not affect small hotels; it would be levied only by hotels with more than 50 guest rooms, raising an estimated $10 to $11 million per year to be added to the $11.4 million Los Angeles currently spends on tourism marketing and promotion. This amount is far lower than comparable cities like Las Vegas and San Diego, hotel owners note, which spend $71 million and $24 million, respectively, on tourism promotion. The Los Angeles City Council will have to vote to approve the measure.

The state of New York also plans a 20 percent increase in hotel occupancy taxes assessed to third-party travel intermediaries (like travel agencies and online travel companies) of 20 percent as part of the currently proposed state budget. This would raise the occupancy tax in New York City for hotel rooms booked through a travel intermediary from 5.875 percent to 7.05 percent.

State officials say the increase would capture revenue that’s not being collected from travel intermediaries due to the fact that they pay taxes on the rates at which they purchase rooms, not the higher rates at which they resell them. (See Battle Over Internet Booking Tax Heats Up for more on this issue.) Intermediaries dispute this, claiming they earn revenue from service fees and commissions, not room markups, and that the tax hike is intended to raise money to help promote tourism.

Remaining Competitive

Despite the need to raise funds during this tough economy, some cities are saying no to additional travel taxes. Carling Dinkler, president of Custom Conventions destination management company based in New Orleans, doesn’t see travel taxes going up in the cities where he primarily does business. “I don’t see anything on my radar indicating that any city that wants to be competitive has plans to raise travel taxes,” he says. “Tourism has been in a deep depression for the past couple of years, and it may be a while before it starts to come out of it.”

Nikki Nicholson, vice president, convention sales, with the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, says that the city’s 13 percent hotel occupancy tax is on the low end for cities of similar size. “This tax has held steady for at least 15 years,” she notes, “and I’m not aware of any plans to raise it.”

However, she understands the plight many cities face in the current economy. “While it’s certainly difficult to raise travel taxes, it’s the only way many cities can generate additional marketing dollars and remain competitive.”

This tax also provides a lot of bang for the buck, Nicholson points out: While a 1 percent bump in the hotel occupancy tax only raises a traveler’s bill about $5 on a typical three-night stay at $175 per night, it can generate an additional $1.75 million a year for a city with 1 million annual room nights.

In Las Vegas, the hotel occupancy tax recently rose from 9 to 12 percent after a voter-approved ballot initiative, with the increase helping fund education, according to Jeremy Handel, a spokesperson for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The CVA receives approximately 34 percent of the revenue the occupancy tax collects, he says, adding that no current plans are in place to increase the tax further. “Like most organizations, we have had to make adjustments to our operations due to declining revenue,” he says. “However, we continue to promote travel to our destination through advertising, marketing and public relations campaigns around the world.”

Update Sept. 9, 2010: The City Council in Costa Mesa, Calif., voted this week increase hotel room taxes 1 percent to help fund the Costa Mesa Conference and Visitor Bureau. The new tax affects 10 hotels on the bureau’s board and increases bureau funding to $1.6 million (up from $1.1 million). City residents vote later this year on a measure that would increase transient occupancy tax from 6 percent to 8 percent.

By Monica Compton

Tough economic times stretch your business and personal dollar, forcing financial decisions that you wouldn’t otherwise have to, or want to, make. Companies are becoming more cognizant of how they are investing their funds and event marketing budgets are often the first to be slashed. Associations and non-profit organizations are usually the most in need of funds, with an economic model based largely on member dues, donations and sponsorship dollars.

The global cash crunch caused a 6 percent decline in sponsorship spending from 2008 to 2009, the first time less money was spent on sponsorships than in the previous year, according to IEG, a global provider of sponsorship measurement and valuation. “Those unprecedented numbers reflect a marketplace that never recovered from the economy’s free fall towards the end of ’08,” says William Chipps, IEG Sponsorship Report senior editor.

The financial crisis has forced organizations to realign the way they are recruiting new sponsors and maintain existing ones. The now industry-wide cliché — out-of-the-box thinking — isn’t enough. Companies must add strategy to their creative thinking and top it off with a dose of financial frugality.

“Sponsorship and advertising are key barometers on an organization’s radar, more so than in fatter times,” says Karl Ely, CAE, vice president and publisher, the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE). “We have to change the way we bundle assets in a more comprehensive way.”

Rather than slapping a sponsor’s logo on a tote bag or listing names on a throwaway show guide, organizations must prove value to sponsors, more so than ever before. Return on investment (ROI) must be shown immediately at the end of the event as well as an expanded analysis of how the sponsorship might bring prospective business to the company in the future.

Philip Arbuckle, MT, MBA, CMP, of MeetingTrack Inc., links a sponsor’s support with a program element that can demonstrate a result. “Whereas in the past it was sufficient to have their name/brand linked with the program,” Arbuckle says. But an IEG survey in partnership with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) states that only 65 percent of organizations determine the results of their sponsorship and event marketing programs. At the same time, almost eight in 10 respondents said the need for validated results has increased in the past two years as a result of having to justify expenditures.

Ely agrees that validation of sponsorship spending is crucial. “We have to be very smart and sharp about tracking the value right away,” he says. “The sponsor doesn’t want it three months after the event; they want it now.” And, he adds, it’s not enough to simply show ROI; you must also provide ROE, Return on Engagement.

“Sponsors are also your event attendees and they need to be engaged,” Ely says. “They are in the market and want to know about it. [They] want to be a part of the discussion.”

Many associations analyze their sponsoring partners’ need factors by interviewing them and understanding what they really want to get out of their investment. It sounds simplistic, but organizations have had a history of creating packages based on what they need (including a certain dollar amount), not what their sponsors want. With the decline in sponsorship revenue, organizations now have to change this history and start customizing programs according to the sponsors’ needs.

Karl Kirsch, CAE, vice president of Meeting Expectations, agrees that sponsorships should be tailored to each company’s needs and like any nurturing relationship, should be given attention on a year-round basis. “The sponsorship is not about the meeting or trade show,” he says. “The planner should be calling the sponsor throughout the year and giving them alerts on how to better leverage their sponsorship both pre- and post-event.”

Another fact-finding idea is to create an advisory board for each of your conferences and events, inviting a member of the sponsoring company to sit on the board. William Drohan, CAE, president of Drohan Management Group, limits this benefit to his top-level sponsors — the platinum as opposed to the gold. He then adds the value of this access to decision makers into his sponsorship package. “There’s a value in providing exposure to these executives,” Drohan says. “And if you’re a top supplier in the industry and you don’t show up, the decision makers will think you’re no longer interested in their industry.”

Drohan also suggests inviting the top-level sponsors to the board of director’s dinner, which might precede the opening day of the conference. The admission that normally would be paid to attend the dinner is then added to the sponsorship package. “Sophisticated board members understand that this is where [sponsorship] revenue is coming from and that’s it an opportunity for the sponsor to develop a business and personal relationship,” Drohan says. “The chance for sponsors to actually meet these executives means much more now in these days of impersonal Internet and e-mail than it did 20 years ago.”

Medical associations must be even more creative in generating benefits. Governed by strict guidelines as to how much and what kind of exposure a sponsor can receive, their programs are limited in advertising opportunities.

Tara Morrison, CAE, president of Association Management Executives Inc., has become more flexible in working with sponsors to achieve their needs. Because only educational materials and pamphlets are permitted in the exhibit hall for pharmaceutical meetings, Morrison cannot provide the traditional logoed merchandise benefit to her sponsors. Not even pens and notepads with a company’s logo are permitted into the hall. A bucket of candy is the minimal booth-traffic enticement sponsors are allowed, but even at that there can’t be a company logo on the wrapper. “We’ve had to call on our other members and not focus solely on pharma companies,” Morrison says.

Philip Arbuckle of MeetingTrack believes that concerns about public perception have made associations much more sensitive to what they are sponsoring and how the sponsorship is listed. “There seems to be more emphasis on being linked with education and community support,” Arbuckle says.  “We also see some sponsors asking that their logo not be used on conference materials and opting for a simple listing of their company name instead.” When he is recruiting funds, he now leaves out the word “sponsor” when asking for an association’s support.

Charles Dillehay, MBA, CAE, of Dillehay Management Group, also had to become more creative in developing benefits for his Association of Physician Assistants conferences. In addition to a more robust e-mail campaign to members, he’s purchased online ads on industry websites targeting pharmaceutical representatives. The reps visiting the site then see the exhibitor opportunity for his conference. “We’ve had to become more cutting-edge and create strategies we haven’t employed to date,” Dillehay says. “You’ll be out of business if you’re doing things the same as you did one to two years ago.”

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Nonprofit sponsorship matchmaking:
Linking together has never been better.

Imagine a matchmaking service for nonprofit organizations seeking funding and companies looking to enhance their corporate social responsibility profile. The nonprofit may not have staff to write a grant or the expertise to craft a proposal targeting interested corporations. The company may not have time to research nonprofit associations offering sponsorship opportunities that can blossom into long-term strategic partnerships.

Enter SponsorPark, an online service that links association to sponsor, opportunity to prospective funding. Result:  a triple bottom-line marriage of “people, planet, profit.” Membership to SponsorPark’s nationwide, web-based community is free of charge. The service provides nonprofit organizations and potential sponsors with the ability to review proposals that match the criteria they enter in the site.

SponsorPark’s search engine manages multiple searches to satisfy a company’s request for more than one event with different target audiences. Although a company can contact the association if interested in the sponsored event, the privacy settings ensure that pursuing the opportunity is at the company’s discretion; they are not inundated with unwanted requests.

Released to a limited audience in March of 2009, the software was beta tested for usability and to gain public feedback. By the end of the year, the SponsorPark website had almost 5,000 registered community members and more than 40,000 proposals had been reviewed.

“SponsorPark is now truly the premier Internet community portal bringing sponsors and sponsorship opportunities together,” says Emily Taylor, co-founder of SponsorPark.  “The best part is we have only started.”

An association such as Soroptimist, for example, would benefit from SponsorPark’s service. A 501 (c)(3) volunteer organization for business and professional women, Soroptimist works to improve the lives of women and girls in local communities.

“We are a charitable organization and we have actually returned to some of the more traditional approaches to sponsors,” says Leigh Wintz, CAE, executive director of Soroptimist International of the Americas. “A lot of our sponsorships have been in-kind good and services, such as laptop computers for our Women’s Opportunity Awards recipients.”

Nearly all recruiters of sponsorship revenue agree that the bundling of benefits into a year-long value package and a multiple-year discount are two top trends.

Arbuckle has moved to multi-year packages where a sponsor is offered a program for three years instead of just sponsoring one event. “This allows us to work with the sponsors in an on-going mode where we can develop an alliance throughout the three-year period,” he says.

Drohan gives a multi-year discount for a bundled benefits package purchased in one payment. He shows the individual pricing of each benefit and then shows the discount if they are purchased together. He believes these packages are also easier to renew because the conference organizer can show the benefits the sponsor received for a longer period of time.

“We can say, ‘here’s what we did for you all year,’ which is easier for the association to sell and less complicated for the sponsor to buy,” Drohan says. “If the sponsorship has a $30,000 value and we charge them $20,000, they know they are getting a $10,000 discount and they have to make only one payment.”

A third trend in sponsorship recruitment is researching industries outside your immediate membership and expanding your offerings to alternative markets. “We have looked at our membership/conference participants and analyzed their buying needs to find new sponsoring companies that may not have been part of our sponsorship mix in the past,” Arbuckle says.

Kirsch is creating flexible packages to accommodate his sponsor’s vertical markets. If his sponsor has a niche product, he might work with the association to create a Webinar targeted at that niche. “Most associations are casting a wider net to try to attract a larger variety of sponsors,” Kirsch says. “This helps to mitigate the risk of being dependent on a small number of large sponsors.”

The good news is that IEG is expecting sponsorship spending by North American companies to grow by 3.4 percent in 2010 to $17 billion, up from $16 billion in last year. “We saw a 12 percent drop in sponsorship revenue in 2009,” Arbuckle says. “Sponsorships improved some in 2010, mainly as a result of taking a different approach in working with sponsors and developing new opportunities. Next year [2011] is looking good and may come close to 2008 levels.”

SponsorPark exists for the purpose of supporting people’s passions by connecting sponsors to sponsorship opportunities. Our service allows for proactive outsourcing and competitive partnerships, while operating more efficiently than ever. Our goal is to introduce the most mutually beneficial relationships, therefore seeing talents realized, business grown and life giving communities unfold.

By Don Sadler

Remember the car slogan from a few years ago, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile”? In 2010, it could be adapted for the meeting and convention business to “This is not your father’s convention and visitors bureau.”

There has been a marked shift by CVBs during the past few years to reposition themselves as hip, engaging and interactive. For many, it starts with dropping the traditional CVB moniker and replacing it with something that’s more visitor-friendly. The trend started after the International Association of Convention and Visitor Bureaus renamed itself the Destination Marketing Association International in 2005. Local destination management organizations soon followed suit; with name changes came new marketing campaigns.

PORTLAND: MORE THAN A NAME CHANGE

Two years ago, the Portland Oregon Visitors Association changed its name to Travel Portland. But according to Greg Newland, Travel Portland’s executive vice president of marketing and public relations, it takes more than a name change to attract meetings and events, especially in today’s competitive climate.

“We didn’t change our name just to be part of a trend — we did it for valid business reasons and because it made sense,” says Newland. “This is a relationship business, and the name of the bureau takes a back seat to the relationships our team builds with meeting and event planners. “At the end of the day, we’re selling a destination, not a bureau. Once planners get through the logistics of dates, rates and availability, they evaluate a destination based on its appeal to attendees.” For years, Portland has played itself up as a “green” city, but during conversations and focus groups, Newland says planners were crying uncle.

“They said, ‘we know you’re green, but what can you tell me about Portland that will get my attendees excited about coming there?’” explains Newland. “So we eliminated our green tagline and are now instead concentrating on headlines in our marketing, which can be adjusted depending on the audience segment.”

Travel Portland also created a marketing video that became a viral hit in the industry. Keith Johnston, group vice president for plannerwire.com and OnSite Events, recently posted it on his blog with the following comment: “This video is exactly what every CVB around the world should be doing — being different. Most destinations are remarkably similar in their category, so it pays to be different and grab attention. What Portland did in this video is not difficult to do; they used imagination to highlight their unique brand proposition.

“Does your video of your destination scream to be shared or is it like all of the others? If your video starts off with your CVB logo and then goes on to detail facts, figures and some pretty pictures, you may want to consider a different approach because in all honesty, that looks exactly like the video of the city a little farther up the coast.”

MORE AGGRESSIVE MARKETING

In addition to name changes and repositioning, many cities and municipalities are taking a much more aggressive stance when it comes to marketing themselves as destinations of choice for meeting and event planners. Early in 2009, Orlando implemented a hyper-targeted marketing effort it dubbed “Operation Connect.” In this effort, representatives from the Orlando/Orange County CVB, the Orange County Convention Center, area hotels and public figures (including the mayor) made in-person sales calls to more than 1,000 meeting and event planners around the country, encouraging them to bring their events to the city.

“This was a massive marketing effort,” says Kathie Canning, the deputy general manager of the OCCC, and the program continues this year. “In the face of a down economy, we haven’t cut our marketing budget — we’ve increased it. This significant investment by visionary leaders here in Orlando has paid off tremendously.”

In January, Orlando hosts the National Automobile Dealers Association conference. “We had many meetings with them in Washington, D.C., to make sure we knew how to help them make the conference a success,” says Canning. Another big win is the International Plastics Showcase, the third-largest trade show in the country, which will be in Orlando in 2012.

PULLING OUT THE MARKETING STOPS

In this environment where everyone is forced to do more with less, many destinations are pulling out all the marketing stops. In 2004, San Jose created Team San Jose, a nonprofit, public-private partnership between the San Jose CVB and local hotels and other tourism businesses, the arts community and organized labor. The Team San Jose model has provided the foundation for all of the city’s tourism and meeting marketing efforts for the past six years. The main benefit to meeting and event planners is that Team San Jose provides a one-team approach to planning events, says CEO Dan Fenton. “We handle everything from logistics and customized menus to strategic planning for clients, rather than handing them off to multiple organizations like most destinations do. This saves planners time and creates more affordable event options.”

The approach has paid off handsomely for the city. Revenue has doubled in facilities managed by Team San Jose since it was created, and the number of room nights generated is up 60 percent, according to Fenton. “This is in the midst of more competition and a down economy. Our model gives us a lot of flexibility and a competitive advantage.”

FIGHTING NEGATIVE PUBLICITY

For years, Cleveland, Ohio, has fought against what many believe is an unfair reputation as an old Rust-Belt city with few attractions and little reason to visit or have a meeting or event there. As part of the city’s ongoing marketing efforts, the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland was renamed Positively Cleveland in 2007. There were a number of different reasons for the change, including the fact that the former name was cumbersome and not well-understood by non-travel industry consumers, says Tamera Lash Brown, Positively Cleveland’s vice president of marketing. Also, it didn’t convey the sense of “Midwestern hip, swagger and pride” that the city wanted to deliver to potential visitors.

“By this, we mean that you’ll discover a twist on things that you might not expect when you come to Cleveland,” she says. “For example, most people expect to find lots of bowling alleys here, so we have a bowling alley in a chic martini bar downtown.”

Earlier this year, Positively Cleveland took what could have been a disastrous public relations scenario and turned it completely around. Following an online survey, Forbes.com named Cleveland the “Most Miserable City in America.” But instead of sulking or brooding, Positively Cleveland had fun with it, creating a website called whattheforbes.com where fans of the region posted videos, photos and comments about why they love Cleveland for a chance to win $5,000 worth of prizes donated by CVB members.

Brown says they received 266 entries that celebrated life in the city. “It has been nice to see there are so many supporters who know that we’re happy in Cleveland,” says Brown. “There have been a growing number of articles, blog posts and Facebook groups springing up to defend the city.”

Reno, Nev., also has had to fight long-held misperceptions, in its case, that the area is primarily a gaming destination. With gaming now available in almost every state in the country, the city knew it needed to rebrand itself to new audiences, so it conducted nearly a year’s worth of in-depth research used to create a new marketing campaign centered around the new tagline: Far From Expected. This rebranding campaign has been aimed primarily at the leisure market so far, but the city plans to use it to attract more meeting and event planners this year. The campaign also includes a new mobile-enabled website that’s easy for planners to read on their cell phones and PDAs, says Ellen Oppenheim, the CEO of the Reno-Sparks CVA.

“All organizations that plan events have been impacted by the economy,” she notes. “This has added more competition to what was already a very competitive environment among destinations to attract meetings and events. We’re always looking for unique ways to differentiate ourselves.”

ON THE FLIP SIDE

Many CVBs are facing large budget cuts that they say will negatively affect visitor traffic and city revenue. They contend that such cuts are short-sighted, at best. For the second straight year, the Pennsylvania Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus (PACVB) and the Pennsylvania Tourism and Lodging Association are opposing proposed budget cuts to the state’s Tourism Promotion Assistance budget line item. Pennsylvania tourism and promotion funding decreased from $32 million in 2009 to $14.2 million in the 2010 budget. This amount has been reduced again to $11.2 million in the proposed budget for next year — resulting in what could be a 65 percent reduction in just two years.

“Obviously, these are difficult times and everybody is sharing in the pain,” says Rob Fulton, president of the PACVB. “But we strongly believe that now is not the time to be cutting our marketing budget further. Tourism, meetings and conventions bring significant revenue to the state, and the budget’s line item for local tourism funding represents a minimal investment for so great a return.”

Fulton says the Pennsylvania tourism industry has been in discussions with the state government to explain the critical impact that tourism and meetings have on the state economy and to retain the current level of funding in next year’s budget. “The administration must recognize our industry’s ability to create jobs and revenue for Pennsylvania in a time of economic uncertainty,” he notes.

That message is an ongoing campaign of travel and meeting industry organizations around the country, echoing in the halls of federal, state and municipal government offices. The stepped-up marketing campaigns from today’s savvier CVBs are bound to help raise the industry’s profile.

It sounds like a lot of fun — having your annual national convention aboard a cruise ship with the Caribbean, Atlantic or Pacific as your location or backdrop. But are the social seas really an ideal setting for your organization?

I’m a meeting planner like you, but I grew up living around the world and now serve as a guest lecturer in the cruise industry. I’ve been on both sides of the fence so I can offer a unique perspective on evaluating whether a cruise meeting might fit your event and the challenges that need to be addressed.

First, if you’ve got an upcoming meeting, now is a good time to plan a meeting on board for two major reasons: The economy makes your organizational meeting very attractive to the cruise industry, and the cruise industry is still introducing new ships, most of which have expanded meeting capabilities aboard. If you have the flexibility of hosting your event to coincide with the cruise industry’s off-season, you could get even lower rates. (Off-season, as far as the cruise industry is concerned, is when the kids are in school.)

A reality of all meetings aboard cruise ships is that you cannot expect to have a traditional meeting from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Your cruise meeting is, in fact, a meeting surrounded by a vacation. All the organizational meetings I’ve seen aboard have had to adapt their schedule to a greatly shortened format as a result. So how do you adapt your meeting agenda to be suited for a cruise ship?

You need to define your budget and revamp your program with the understanding that you’ll only be able to hold your group’s attention for a short time before all the shipboard activities take away from what you and your organization are trying to accomplish. Do some research online to look at individual ships and their schedules. Explain what you are trying to accomplish to your travel agency or the group sales department of any cruise line.

Get familiar with cruise itineraries. Most cruise lines have three-, four- and seven-night cruises (and longer). Can your organization make do with just one major meeting lasting an hour or so? If so, a four-day cruise with one sea day might be attractive. Need two or three, one-hour sessions? Your best bet may be a seven-day cruise with at least three sea days.

You also need to understand daily activities on board a ship. When a ship is in port, very few activities are planned so people can take advantage of excursions on land. On a sea day it is not uncommon to see 80 to 100 planned activities in the ship’s daily cruise newsletter.

Let’s combine your meeting needs and see how this can work with maybe a seven-night cruise with three sea days: Plan to have your attendees fly in the day before a cruise, say in September, because that is an off-season month for many cruise itineraries. That way, everyone will have time to make it to the ship and you’ll have the opportunity to hold a pre-cruise dinner meeting. Arrange to get your members to the ship by 11 a.m. Most cruise ships start their boarding process around noon. There are some (but not a lot) of activities planned on boarding day. Why not plan a meeting around 3 p.m. for an hour? By then your group would have had lunch and an opportunity to explore the ship, and it would be before the mandatory lifeboat drill all ships hold.

Then on your three sea days, arrange for a 9 a.m. meeting each day and limit it to one hour. While some cruise activities start at that time, the majority are scheduled later. If you need another time or two to meet for an hour, suggest a 2 p.m. meeting on a day the ship is in port. This will allow your group to get off the ship in the morning to see the destination, return to the ship for lunch, and attend your session before the ship sails and activities pick up again. Here are some other factors to consider:

Benefits

Your cruise fare includes the berth and your meals on board. A day on a cruise ship is actually less expensive than staying in a hotel and paying for your meals.

Depending on the size of your group, you may be entitled to a free cocktail reception.

You can arrange to have all your attendees sit together where guaranteed (not necessarily ‘free style’) seating is an option.

Everyone in your group will be able to get to your meetings within five minutes or less.

A complimentary berth is usually given when 16 people are booked with your group. When 32 people are booked, it often means a free room.

The cruise line usually arranges to have a cruise staff member (someone in guest relations) be your contact on board to make certain your meeting room is ready and any other needs are taken care of. A special venue such as a cruise ship does much to bring together any organization, build team spirit and guarantee fun at the same time.

Challenges

All cruise lines now require a U.S. passport, so make sure your attendees have theirs before boarding. If you add organization fees to the cost of the cruise, your members may discover they are paying more for their cruise than other people on board, so be sure they are aware of the addition. As the planner involved, you will need to make certain that all your attendees pay a deposit of hundreds of dollars months in advance and the final balance approximately 60 days before sailing.

Unlike a hotel, a single person occupying one stateroom on board a ship takes away the ability of the ship to sell that extra berth. So anyone traveling alone in your group has to pay 175 percent or more of the cost of the room. Your participants will have other expenses on board including gratuities (approximately $10 per person per day on board), beverages, ships’ excursions, etc. While ships have some audiovisual facilities they allow groups to use, many don’t have a lot of sophisticated multi-media or printing facilities on board, so be sure to check what is available.

On disembarkation day, it is nearly impossible to keep groups together, because cruise ships want to get everyone off quickly to prepare for the next group coming aboard. Everyone is excited about a cruise but when you consider that they may want to bring a significant other or a spouse along, this increases the cost of the cruise and could potentially limit the number of people attending your event on board a cruise ship. Cruising is a lot of fun and a very attractive option for a future national meeting of your organization. When you consider everything, is a cruise doable for your organization?

Joe Condrill is president of Overseas Brats, an organization of former military and overseas dependents, that’s based in Wichita, Kan. He also serves as a guest lecturer in the cruise industry, doing three or four cruise assignments annually.

Wi-Fi is an added value for your technologically advanced attendees, but even without it, meeting planners can take advantage of the tool that attendees have likely brought along to enhance their meeting experience — a smartphone with its own wireless network. Mobile applications, ranging from the passive Twitter hashtag for attendees already using the social network to a custom app for your event, are redefining events, attendee experience and the ongoing conversation.

Not everyone at your event has a smartphone, but connecting with those who do has become a must. The device can be used to implement audience response technology or other communication and engagement tools.

Custom applications have become an affordable option for conventions. You can have a custom app created by one of hundreds of mobile application developers, or have an application already created with meetings and trade shows in mind customized for your event. ChirpE by a2z, one such example, won a Trade Show Executive 2009 Innovation Award. The application has event maps, floor plans, program schedules and an exhibitor list, and integrates social media into one place. “Buzz” text messages can be sent through the app to alert attendees of schedule updates, promotions, or other important conference and event reminders.

FollowMe, created by Core-Apps, was used at the 2010 International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow. It integrates with Twitter, sending notifications and alerts. It allows attendees to add sessions and events to a personal schedule, read speaker and exhibitor profiles, star who they want to see on the trade-show floor and download brochures from exhibitors. The GPS exhibit hall mapping tool allows exhibitors to offer promotions to attendees as they walk by.

VisionTree Conference is accessible through a personal mobile device or one provided by the developer. VisionTree has much of the same functionality as other apps — exhibitor listings, floor plans, messages and agendas — and adds mobile surveys, the ability to ask questions during a session and business card exchange.

MacroView Labs creates custom apps for hotels, airports, cities and attractions, including the new interactive apps for Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand and New York-New York resorts in Las Vegas that allow guests to view video, GPS maps and indoor casino maps, and to order room service, preview event space and more. Meetings at the three properties can add passcode-protected content viewable only to attendees, including program schedules, photos and more. When creating other custom apps, MacroView Labs can also incorporate area and hotel information, as well as the custom content needed for the event, including GPS maps, ratings and reviews, meetings schedules, speaker information and PDF downloads.

“We host the content but give you access,” explains Keith Michel, co-founder and CTO. “It is a loose and dynamic app. It can be updated every hour to provide content specific to the event.”

Current mobile technology enhances the attendee experience a great deal. Programs, handouts and other paperwork have become almost unnecessary. The conversation surrounding the event can be ongoing — and this is just the beginning. With the introduction of the iPad, the opportunity for new meeting technology has grown exponentially.

— Jennifer Garrett

This morning, I left Atlanta and headed to Virginia Beach, only to open my wallet and see that, of course, I have no cash. I’m one of those folks who lives and dies by the credit card. As I scrolled through the news on my iPhone on the metro train to the airport, though, I came across this story about a new app from Allpoint that allows a person to search for the nearest fee-free ATM. Score!

I downloaded the app as soon as I arrived at my Hilton hotel. I searched for the nearest ATM that won’t charge me money to get my money (it automatically searches based on your GPS location). The story noted that most of the locations that pop up are in convenience stores or retail centers, and that’s true. The one nearest my hotel is in a 7-Eleven store; the app also offered to give me directions there, but I should have no trouble finding this one (it’s two-tenths of a mile away).

I used to hate leaving home without my phone because I thought, “What if there’s an emergency? What if I need to call someone for help?” But it’s moved well beyond that now. If I leave home without my phone, I leave home without my e-mail, GPS system, boarding pass, access to free ATMS … you get the point. Oh, and of course, it’s still a phone if I need it.

Some of these new tools have been introduced in the past year, largely under the radar. More than a dozen airports in the United States are now equipped with mobile scanning devices at security checkpoints and terminal gates. Major carriers such as Delta, American Airlines and Northwest allow passengers to check in on their mobile devices and receive electronic boarding passes by e-mail or text message. For planners who are regularly on the go, having everything accessible on their mobile devices is a welcome change.

This summer, two Holiday Inn properties will begin testing smartphones as room keys. Guests who check in to the Holiday Inn Chicago O’Hare Rosemont and the Holiday Inn Express Houston Downtown Convention Center will have the option of using their iPhone, Android or Blackberry as a room key by downloading an app. They can simply hold their phone next to a sensor at the room entrance to unlock it. Bryson Koehler of InterContinental Hotels told the USA Today that he thinks the idea will work because many guests already have a smartphone, so integrating a room key into the device reduces the need to carry around yet one more item.

Many airports have been offering self-service check-in at freestanding kiosks for a few years, and now hotels are slowly implementing the kiosks. All Hyatt Place properties allow travelers to quickly check in at electronic kiosks that are placed right inside the door, and large hotels, such as the Sheraton Dallas, now offer self check-in as well. The kiosks at the Sheraton Dallas also allow passengers to check out at the kiosks and print boarding passes before leaving the hotel.

What all this amounts to is a better and less complicated experience for the traveler. Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, discussed the importance of improving travel at the recent U.S. Travel International Pow Wow conference. “Once we get people to visit, we need to lay out the welcome mat, and that means reducing the hassle factor,” he said during a speech on May 17.

One area that Donohue would like to see less hassle is in international travel. The Department of Homeland Security recently announced the elimination of in-flight paper forms for international travelers. The federal Visa Waiver Program allows travelers with an approved Electronic System for Travel Authorization permit to not have to fill out the 1-94W paper form previously required for admission to the country. In response to the announcement, Roger Dow, U.S. Travel president and CEO, said “the United States is proving that it can simultaneously strengthen security and improve our customers’ experience.”

“In today’s tougher economy there is no better time to look for ways to improve efficiencies, maximize investment, reduce cost, and innovate,” says Nancy J. Wilson, CMP of Meeting Strategies Worldwide. “The solution to overcoming economic challenges can be found in the environmental and social opportunities that are calling on meeting professionals to create the most sustainable and value-added approach to their activities.”

According to the white paper, companies are reporting that what makes the best financial sense is many times the environmental choice as well.Organizations committed to sustainability are finding their bottom line is better, employee retention is increased, and consumers want to do business with them.  The two explanations given in support of these findings are: Companies committed to sustainable practices tend to operate more leanly, saving on energy costs and overall input costs; Consumers have begun placing a premium on goods produced in a sustainable manner.

“Most CFOs believe sustainability can lead to cost savings, increased revenues, greater customer retention, and a competitive advantage, so clearly this is an opportunity that cannot be ignored,” says Lauralee Martin of Jones Land LaSalle concerning the role of finance in environmental stability efforts.

In 2008, a Meeting Market Trend Survey found that 43 percent of association meeting planners were planning green meetings. This was up from just seven percent two years ago.

The white paper details five reasons the meeting industry should incorporate green initiatives: They offer cost savings, competitive advantage and promotional benefits, increase delegate satisfaction, boost employee retention, and mitigate risks.

Meeting Strategies Worldwide recently honored Montreal, Quebec, Canada as the newest city to join the Best Places to MeetGreen Scorecard. Montreal joins the exclusive ranks of Portland, Oregon; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Orlando, Florida; Seattle, Washington; and San Francisco, California.

The MeetGreen Scorecard is designed to help meeting and event planners select the best green destination for their group. Like the nonprofit organization Climate Counts, the scorecard rates companies on their efforts to reduce their impact on global climate changes. The select few are ranked according to the green programs implemented by the destination’s conventions and visitor’s bureau, convention center and hotels in the city’s conference package.

Climate Counts recently began ranking airlines and hotel companies in the United States. Among the airlines, Northwest scored the highest in attempts to assess carbon footprints, reduce pollution, support climate legislation, and communicate their efforts to the public. Marriott topped the list of hotel companies in terms of green initiatives.