Town Hall | Plan Your Meetings

Cost-saving strategies and solutions to industry challenges

Despite reassurances that the recession is over, corporate purse strings aren’t getting any looser. And that, coupled with increasing hotel and transportation costs and short booking windows, is leaving meeting and event planners feeling pinched. On the meeting supply side, hotel and convention sales managers are having a hard time connecting with potential clients and maintaining [...]

Summary of findings: PYM Town Hall Atlanta 2011

On April 29, 2011, meeting planners and suppliers came together in Atlanta to discuss the State of the Industry. Here is a summary of their findings.

Incentive planners choose destinations based on price first, then quality of service

Destinations wishing to book repeat business may want to bone up on customer service. Roughly 93 percent of the incentive planners surveyed by the Site International Foundation said they’d return to a destination if it offered quality service along with reasonable pricing. “The primary reason for choosing a destination is financially driven, which is no surprise [...]

2010 PYM Town Hall Aspen: State of the Industry report

Table of contents for 2010 Town Hall Aspen2010 PYM Town Hall Aspen: State of the Industry reportThe PYM State of the Industry Roundtable was a luncheon held in Aspen with local meeting industry professionals in August 2010. In attendance: 1. President/CEO of a local chamber/tourism bureau 2. Director of Sales of a resort hotel with condo and vacation [...]

Making the case to meet in your city

What do meeting planners want? What makes them choose one city over another? And what can convention and visitors bureaus, destination marketing organizations and tourism boards do to make their destination the obvious choice? The easy answer is they want you to customize your sales pitch to address their needs and concerns, offer added value and [...]

The state of the international MICE industry

With 3,800 hosted-buyers and 3,500 exhibitors from 150 countries participating in IMEX 2010 in Frankfurt, the state of the international meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) industry seems to be on the upswing. While industry professionals agree that relief from the economic downturn is eminent, they also concur that future challenges lie ahead. “Recovery is uncertain [...]

2010 PYM Town Hall Austin: State of the Industry Report

How to keep staff motivated, tailor your product to the economy and meet event planner expectations were some of the solutions discussed at this event, held on Feb. 24, 2010 in Austin, Texas, which gathered current PYM partners together to discuss current sales and marketing challenges in the meetings industry.