Meeting and convention planner Archives

Event Planning Companies Are Getting Creative for Transportation

photo by jaunted.com

First there were the additional fees charged by airlines for; boarding early, watching tv, having a meal on board, and checking luggage. Now event planning companies are learning that airlines are looking at adding extra fees for their preferred seats. Billed as a way to combat the ever increasing fuel costs that airlines are faced with, additional fees are becoming commonplace with most airlines. As an airline spokesperson indicated, we got used to the menu add-ons in the food and beverage industry and now many customers are content with airline add-on fees. The reason, they contend, is that many travelers are happy to decide for themselves what they’re willing to pay for and what they’re not willing to pay for.

Transportation is a Large Component of an Event Planning Company’s Services

Transportation is one of those logistical components to an overall conference or event. You see, getting all of your delegates to the meeting’s location on time is the number one goal to launch a successful conference. And when you’re dealing with many different airlines and many different airports those planning logistics can sometimes become a nightmare. Add in weather and have a whole other can of worms.

The good news for event planning companies is that many of these airlines are setting aside more window and aisle seats for their frequent flyers at no extra cost. After all, it is the frequent flyers that tend to pay a higher per ticket price compared with many other passengers on the same flight.

Tips on How You Can Be Creative When It Comes to Booking Transportation

book as far out as possible to ensure that, in addition to availability, you’re able to pick a seat without an additional charge

consider your route. If you have to schedule a connection flight as part of your travel plans consider using a less traveled airport for your hub. Flight availability and cost can be drastically affected by flying through less traveled airports.

Flying days. Many event planning companies are now starting to look at the days of the week that they could schedule their conferences. It is a delicate balancing act as their goal is also to make sure the delegates don’t miss too much time in the office. However, by adjusting the days of your conference you can have dramatic impact on flight availability and costs.

Check with your gate agent regarding seat moves. Even if you have exhausted all their traditional means of selecting your ideal seat with no lock, still check with your gate agent regarding a move. Quite often they are trying to accommodate other passengers with seat changes and your request may assist them.

Dress appropriately. Yes a picture is worth a thousand words. How you look can have an impact on where you can be moved. An agent is not going to move someone that has pants hanging down to their knees beside a frequent business flyer. But if you dress in business casual you may be pleasantly surprised.

Airlines, like many industries today, are always looking for ways to add additional revenue to their bottom line. Like so, meeting planning companies today need to be creative when providing transportation for their clients. There are ways to keep additional costs to a minimum, you just need to be creative.

Transportation Costs Can Get out of Hand for Meeting Event Planning (comedy video) (plananevent.org)
Event Planning Conference Software (plananevent.org)
Meeting and Event Planning – What do You Do? (plananevent.org)
3 Tips for Wedding Planning on a Budget

How a Meeting and Event Planner Uses a CVB

photo by ecotrans.org

There’s no doubt that a meeting and event planner wants a CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau) to assist them with their planning needs when bringing a group or convention to a particular city. A CVB is basically a marketing division for the city that they are in. It’s their job to promote their city in such a way that a meeting and event planner wants to bring their group to the CVB’s city. A CVB will spend mind boggling marketing dollars to brand their city. What exactly does branding a city mean? Well the best example that I can think of, when trying to demonstrate a city that has branded themselves well, is New York City. If anyone comes up to you and asks if you been to the “Big Apple” you most definitely will know that they’re talking about New York City. That’s branding.

A Meeting and Event Planner Uses a CVB to Start the RFP Process

Let’s assume that you are a meeting and event planner. And also let’s assume that you have selected a city to take your group of 50 to. So now what you do? Well obviously you want to develop a meeting planner template or checklist and start listing all of the steps that will be necessary for you to execute a successful meeting. For more on meeting planner templates or checklists see the related articles below.

CVB’s are a free service for a meeting and event planner. So the first thing the meeting and event planner should do is contact the city’s CVB and get their meeting put on the books. Your CVB contact will spend a little time getting to know you as well as a little bit of information about your group (i.e. the type of people, what they like to do, where they like to go and what they like to eat). Following that meeting, the CVB will then send out a request for proposal (RFP), usually to hotels first, indicating how many rooms you are seeking and for how many days (otherwise known as room nights) plus any food and beverage and meeting room requirements. Then the hotel salespeople get to work. They’ll look at their books to see if they can accommodate your request and then send you a summary of rooms available and at what rate. Depending on your food and beverage and meeting requirements you may have some wiggle room as far as room rate negotiations. A meeting and event planner can tell their CVB contact how many hotel properties they want their RFP to go to. The CVB will manage the RFP process from the hotels (although it is the norm that the hotels will communicate directly with the meeting and event planner). Once a hotel has been selected the others will be notified that they did not make the cut.

A Meeting and Event Planner Will Consult with the CVB on Which Service Companies to Hire

A CVB also has an extensive list of service providers. Whether it be a DMC (Destination Management Company), a transportation company, and attraction or restaurant, a good CVB will be able to point the meeting and event planner in the right direction. I usually recommend to meeting and event planners that they ask their CVB contact not to have service companies contact them until they know which hotel they are using. Sorry service providers this is not an attack on your operation at all. It’s just that a meeting and event planner can be inundated with sales calls and e-mails from service providers. And having been a service provider in the past I can tell you that these calls and contacts are all well intended. However the reason I advise meeting and event planners today to hold off on having service companies contact them is so that they are allowed enough time to make the proper decision on their hotel and meeting facilities. Then, once the hotel and meeting facility has been finalized, initiating contact with service companies would proceed. Of course if a meeting and event planner has the budget a DMC is recommended to help with all of the other service aspects of their program (disclaimer – I have worked for a DMC in the past – so I know how valuable their services can be).

While this is usually not a major issue it is worth noting that a CVB can only put forward companies that are members. I say this is not a major issue because most reputable companies do belong to their local CVB. When selecting smaller parts of the program, such as restaurants, you may want to consider talking to your hotel contact as there may be excellent local restaurants that are not a member of the CVB.