1. 12
Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions

2. Chapter Objectives
After reading and studying this chapter, the students should be able to do the following:
List the major players in the convention industry.
Describe destination management companies.
Describe the different aspects of being a meeting planner.
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3. Chapter Objectives
After reading and studying this chapter, the students should be able to do the following:
Explain the different types of meetings, conventions, and expositions.
List the various venues for meetings, conventions, and expositions.

4. Development of the Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions Industry
People have gathered to attend meetings, conventions, and expositions since the ancient times, mainly for social, sporting, political, or religious purposes.
The guilds in Europe were created during the Middle Ages to secure proper wages and maintain work standards.
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5. Development of the Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions Industry
Associations began in the United States at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conventions, and Exhibitions (MICE) segment of the industry statistics point to the fact that the average MICE tourist spends about twice the amount of money that other tourists spend.

6. Size and Scope of the Industry
According to the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), there are about 90,908 trade and professional associations.
The association business is big business.
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7. Size and Scope of the Industry
Associations spend billions holding thousands of meetings and conventions that attract millions of attendees.
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8. Size and Scope of the Industry
The hospitality and tourism industry itself consists of a number of associations, including the following:
The American Hotel and Lodging Association
The National Restaurant Association
The American Culinary Federation
Destination Marketing Association International
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9. Size and Scope of the Industry
The hospitality and tourism industry itself consists of a number of associations, including the following:
Hotel Sales and Marketing Association International
Association of Meeting Professionals
Club Managers Association of America
Professional Convention Management Association
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10. Size and Scope of the Industry
Associations are the main independent political force for industries like hospitality, offering the following benefits:
Governmental/political voice, marketing avenues, education, member services, and networking.

11. Key Players in the Industry
Many major, and some smaller, cities have convention centers with nearby hotels and restaurants.
The major players in the convention industry are convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), corporations, associations, meeting planners and their clients, convention centers, specialized services, and exhibitions.
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12. Key Players in the Industry
The CVB represents local businesses by acting as the sales team for the city with the outcome of increasing revenues for the city’s tourist industry.
A number of bureaus have offices or representatives in these cities or a sales team who will make follow-up visits to the leads generated at trade shows.
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13. Key Players in the Industry
The CVB sales manager will invite the meeting, convention, or exposition organizer to make a familiarization trip to do a site inspection.

14. Business and Association Conventions and Meetings
Publicly held corporations are required by law to have an annual shareholders’ meeting.
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15. Business and Association Conventions and Meetings
Most also have sales meetings, incentive trips (all-expenses paid trips for groups of employees who met or exceeded goals set for them), product launches, focus groups, executive retreats, seminars and training sessions, and management meetings.
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16. Business and Association Conventions and Meetings
When a corporation decides to hold a gathering, it determines what the budget will be, where the gathering will be held, and who will attend.
In the United States, almost 1.3 million corporate events are held annually, with a total attendance of 84 million.
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17. Business and Association Conventions and Meetings
The total direct spending on these events is over $30 billion per year, with the average corporate event generating almost $550,000.
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18. Business and Association Conventions and Meetings
Associations represent the interests of their members and gather at the state, regional, national, and international levels for professional industry-related reasons; for annual congresses, conventions, and conferences; and for scientific, educational, and training meetings.
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19. Business and Association Conventions and Meetings
Conventions charge attendees a registration fee and charge vendors for booth space.
Association conventions and meetings attract crowds ranging from hundreds to over 100,000.
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20. Business and Association Conventions and Meetings
The larger associations book their dates several years ahead, some in the same place at the same time of year; others move around the country.

21. Destination Management Companies
A destination management company (DMC) is a service organization within the visitor industry that offers a host of programs and services to meet clients’ needs.
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22. Destination Management Companies
Initially, a destination management sales manager concentrates on selling the destination to meeting planners and performance improvement companies (incentive houses).
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23. Destination Management Companies
DMCs work closely with hotels; sometimes DMCs book rooms, and other times hotels request the DMCs’ know-how on organizing theme parties.
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24. Destination Management Companies
A DMC does everything, including airport greetings, transportation to the hotel, VIP check-in, theme parties, sponsoring programs, organizing competitive sports events, and so on, depending on budget.

25. Meeting Planners
Meeting planners may be independent contractors who contract out their services to both associations and corporations as the need arises, or they may be full-time employees of corporations or associations.
About 212,000 full- and part-time meeting planners work in the United States.
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26. Meeting Planners
The professional meeting planner not only makes hotel and meeting bookings but also plans the meeting down to the last minute.
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27. Meeting Planners
The meeting planner’s role varies from meeting to meeting but includes the following:
Pre-meeting activities
On-site activities
Post-meeting activities

28. Service Contractors
Service contractors, exposition service contractors, general contractors, and decorators are all terms that have at one time or another referred to the individual responsible for providing all of the services needed to run the facilities for a trade show.
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29. Service Contractors
Just as a meeting planner is able to multitask and satisfy all the demands in meeting planning, a general exposition contractor must be multitalented and equipped to serve all exhibit requirements and creative ideas.
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30. Service Contractors
The service contractor is hired by the exposition show manager or association meeting planner.
The service contractor is a part of the facilities management team, and, to use the facility, the sponsor must use its service contractor.

31. Meetings
Meetings are conferences, workshops, seminars, or other events designed to bring people together for the purpose of exchanging information; the purpose of meetings is to affect behavior.
Meetings can take any one of the following forms: clinics, forums, seminars, symposiums, or workshops.
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32. Meetings Meetings are set up according to the wishes of the client.
The three main types of meeting setups are theater style, classroom style, and boardroom style.

33. Association Meetings
Every year there are thousands of association meetings that spend millions of dollars sponsoring many types of meetings, including regional, special interest, education, and board meetings.
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34. Association Meetings
The things that top the list of what an association meeting planner looks for when choosing a meeting destination include the availability of hotels and facilities, ease of transportation, distance from attendees, transportation costs, and food and beverage.

35. Conventions and Expositions
Conventions are generally larger meetings with some form of exposition or trade show included.
A number of associations have one or more conventions per year.
These conventions raise a large part of the association’s budget.
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36. Conventions and Expositions
Conventions are not always held in convention centers; in fact, the majority are held in large hotels over a three- to five-day period.
Function space is allocated for registration, the convention, expositions, meals, and so on.
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37. Conventions and Expositions
Expositions are events that bring together sellers of products and services at a location (usually a convention center) where they can show their products and services to a group of attendees at a convention or trade show.
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38. Conventions and Expositions
Exhibitors are an essential component of the industry because they pay to exhibit their products to the attendees.

39. Types of Associations
An association is an organized body that exhibits some variety of volunteer leadership structure, which may employ an activity, or purpose that they share in common.
The association is generally organized to promote and enhance that common interest, activity, or purpose.
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40. Types of Associations
The association industry is significant in many respects—but it’s the big spender when it comes to conventions and meetings.

41. Historical Associations
Today’s associations find their roots in historical times.
Ancient Roman and Asian craftsmen formed associations for the betterment of their trade.
The Middle Ages found associations in the form of guilds, which were created to ensure proper wages were received and to maintain work standards.

42. Types of Historical Associations
A Trade Association is an industry trade group that is generally a public relations organization founded and funded by corporations that operate in a specific industry.
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43. Types of Historical Associations
A Professional Association is a professional body or organization, usually non-profit that exists to further a particular profession, to protect both the public interest and the interests of professionals.
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44. Types of Historical Associations
Medical and Scientific Associations are professional organization for medical and scientific professionals. They are often based on their specific specialties and are usually national.
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45. Types of Historical Associations
Religious Organizations include those groups of individuals that are part of churches, mosques, synagogues, and other spiritual or religious congregations.
Government Organizations can range from federal, state, and local.

46. Types of Meetings
Some of the types of meetings are annual meetings that are held by private or public companies, board and committee meetings, fund-raisers, and professional and technical meetings.
Annual meetings are meetings that are generally held every year by corporations or associations to inform their members of previous and future activities.
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47. Types of Meetings
Board meetings for corporations must be held annually, and most corporations hold meetings monthly or four times a year.
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48. Types of Meetings
Committee meetings are generally held at the place of business and only occasionally are held in hotels.
Seminars are frequently held in hotels, as are workshops and technical meetings.
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49. Types of Meetings
Corporate Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions… corporations hold meetings for reasons of educating, training, decision making, research, sales, team building, the introduction of a new product, organization or reorganization, problem solving, and strategic planning.
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50. Types of Meetings
Many participants in meetings are organized by either an association, a corporation, or social, military, educational, religious, and fraternal groups (SMERF).
Often, these groups are price conscious, because of the fact that the majority of the functions sponsored by these organizations are paid for by the individual.
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51. Types of Meetings
Incentive meetings: the incentive market of MICE continues to experience rapid growth as meeting planners and travel agents organize incentive travel programs for corporate employees to reward them for reaching specific targets.

52. Meeting Planning
Meeting planning includes not only the planning but also the successful holding of the meeting and the post-meeting evaluations.
Before a meeting planner can start planning a meeting, a needs analysis is done to determine the purpose and desired outcome of a meeting.
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53. Meeting Planning
The key to a productive meeting is a meeting agenda, which provides the framework for making meeting objectives.
The meeting’s objectives provide the framework from which the meeting planner will set the budget, select the site and facility, and plan the overall meeting or convention.
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54. Meeting Planning
Setting the budget for the meeting is more successful if the meeting planner is involved in the budget planning throughout.
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55. Meeting Planning
Income for a meeting, convention, or exposition comes from grants or contributions, event sponsor contributions, registration fees, exhibitor fees, company or organization sponsoring, advertising, and the sale of educational materials.
Expenses for a meeting are extensive.
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56. Meeting Planning
No matter how large or small a meeting, it is essential that clear meeting specifications are developed in the form of a written request for proposal/quote (RFQ).
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57. Meeting Planning
Several factors are evaluated when selecting a meeting site, including location and level of service, accessibility, hotel room availability, conference room availability, price, city, restaurant service and quality, personal safety, and local attractions.
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58. Meeting Planning
During the site inspection, the meeting planner is shown all facets of the hotel, including the meeting rooms, guest sleeping rooms, the food and beverage outlets, and any special facility that may interest the planner or the client.
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59. Meeting Planning
The meeting planner has several critical interactions with hotels, including negotiation with the convention center or hotel for room blocks and rates.
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60. Meeting Planning
The most important interaction is typically with the catering/banquet/conference department associates, especially the services manager, maître d’, and captains.
The components include an offer, consideration (payment), and acceptance.
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61. Meeting Planning
Once the meeting planner and the hotel or conference facility have agreed on all the requirements and costs, a contract is prepared and signed by the planner, the organization, and the hotel or convention center.
The contract is a legal document that binds two or more parties.
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62. Meeting Planning
Contracts should include clauses on “attrition and performance,” meaning that the contract has a clause to protect the hotel or convention facility in the event that the organizer’s numbers drop below an acceptable level.
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63. Meeting Planning
The performance part of the clause means that a certain amount of food and beverage revenue will be charged for regardless of whether it is consumed.
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64. Meeting Planning
Organizing and Preconference Meetings: the average lead time required for organizing a small meeting is about three to six months; larger meetings and conferences take much longer and are booked years in advance.
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65. Meeting Planning
Conference Event Order: A conference event order has all the information necessary for all department employees to be able to refer to for details of the setup (times and layout) and the conference itself (arrival, meal times and what food and beverages are to be served, and the cost of items so that the billing can be done).
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66. Meeting Planning
A post-event meeting is held to evaluate the event—what went well and what should be improved for next time.

67. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
Most of the time, meetings and functions are held in hotels, convention centers, city centers, conference centers, universities, corporate offices, or resorts, but more and more, meetings are housed in unique venues such as cruise ships and historical sites.
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68. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
City centers are good venues for some conferences because they are convenient to reach by air and ground transportation.
There is plenty of action in a major city center; attractions range from cultural to scenic beauty.
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69. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
Convention centers throughout the world compete to host the largest exhibitions, which can be responsible for adding several million dollars in revenue to the local economy.
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70. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
Usually, convention centers are corporations owned by county, city, or state governments and are operated by a board of appointed representatives
Convention centers have a variety of expositions and meeting rooms to accommodate both large and small events.
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71. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
The centers generate revenue from the rental of space, which frequently is divided into booths (one booth is about 100 square feet).
Large exhibits may take several booths’ space.
Additional revenue is generated by the sale of food and beverages, concession stand rentals, and vending machines.
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72. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
In addition to the mega-convention centers, a number of prominent centers also contribute to the local, state, and national economies.
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73. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
A conference center is a specially designed learning environment dedicated to hosting and supporting small- to medium-sized meetings, typically between twenty and fifty people.
The nature of a conference meeting is to promote a distraction-free learning environment.
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74. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
Hotels and resorts offer a variety of locations from city center to destination resorts.
Many hotels have ballrooms and other meeting rooms designed to accommodate groups of various sizes.
Meeting in a nontraditional facility can provide a unique and memorable experience for the meeting attendee.
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75. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
A cruise ship meeting is a uniquely different meeting setting and offers a number of advantages to the attendees, such as discounts, complimentary meals, less outside distraction while at sea, entertainment, and visiting more than one destination while unpacking only once!
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76. Venues for Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
More and more, alternative venues for meeting places include facilities such as colleges, universities, and their campuses.
Most of the time, the relative cost of campus-based meetings is less expensive than a medium-priced hotel.

77. Sustainable Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
The meetings industry is becoming more responsible in its environmental stewardship; companies that choose to do so are reporting higher gross margins, higher return on sales, higher return on assets, and a stronger cash flow within its own organization.
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78. Sustainable Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
Simply switching from bottled water to pitchers of water for attendees and reusing name-badge holders can provide substantial savings.
In addition to monetary savings to these groups, the amount of waste deposited into a landfill has been dramatically reduced, just by making these small changes.
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79. Sustainable Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
Convention centers are going green by reducing the heat, light, and power consumption.

80. Career Information
Successful meeting planners are detail-oriented, organized people who not only plan and arrange meetings, but also negotiate hotel rooms and meeting space in hotels and convention centers.
Other career opportunities include incentive travel, conventions and expositions, and off-premise catering.
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81. Career Information
For all career paths, it is critical to gain experience in the areas of your interest.
Ask people you respect to be your mentor, and ask questions! When you show enthusiasm, people will respond with more help and advice.

82. Trends in Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
New technologies assisting meeting planners with the ability to identify and manage key markets.
Increased use of smartphones and connectivity and lighting speed or the need for faster networks.
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83. Trends in Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions
Demand for unique, out-of-the-ordinary meeting experiences including making meetings personal with social media.
Keeping it healthy, and going greener.