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US Travel Asociation Launches "Vote Travel" Campaign

by Jessica Levin

Building on the momentum from President Obama'sannouncement last week highlighting the travel industry's significance to the economy, the U.S. Travel Associationannounced a major year-long campaign intended to raise its profile across the nation and among policymakers in Washington, DC.

"The world is experiencing a travel boom and the United States needs to be part of it," said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.

Victory for Travel This Week: National Strategy on Travel and Tourism

Our efforts over the past several years to amplify the travel industry's relevance with policymakers resulted in a major win for our industry today. Earlier this afternoon in Orlando, FL, President Obama announced a national strategy on travel and tourism to boost travel to and within the United States. Full story...

Contracting for Trouble: What We Can Learn From Muffingate

Last September was a bad PR month for the meetings and events industry. That’s when the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General Audit Division released a harshly critical report on the agency’s spending on conference planning—particularly on the amount it paid for food and beverage at events. Full story...

Outlook 2012: For Planners, Strategy Will Trump Logistics

Viewing yourself as a strategic partner and business professional, rather than as a meetings professional, could make 2012 your most successful year ever. Staying on top of technology, especially mobile, is another essential ingredient for success in the year ahead. Today’s meeting attendees rightfully expect tech tools and connectivity at a meeting to be at least on par with what they have at the office or in their homes. Full story...

Report: 8 Trends For Better Events in 2012

During 2011 I’ve organized a couple of events, spoke at 5 or 6 and attended in total more than 20 in 8 different countries, big and small, including international conferences, seminars, meet-ups , gatherings and university lectures. Many are still playing it safe in an industry which is heavily influenced by outdated principles of the pre-internet era. Full story...

How Many Venues and Events Are Out There?

UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, continues to develop market research to provide reliable data on the international exhibition market. Several recent studies provide statistics giving a good picture of the industry at three levels: venues, the events held in those venues, and the companies who organize those events. Full story...

Event Marketing Strategies for Tough Economic Times

It’s no secret that the recent American economy is affecting the events industry. Budgets are being slashed; event attendance is dramatically down; attendees are less willing or able to travel; and those attendees who do show up are feeling the effects of the current economy. As a result, exhibitors are being forced to scrutinize every detail to prove the value of their events. Full story...

Firing Up for 2012 Meetings Business

With the meetings industry on the rebound, it’s a good time to make your pitch for a bigger meetings budget. Once your budget gets the go-ahead, use the following red-hot meeting trends as a starting point for spending it wisely. Full story...

American Express Meetings & Events: More Meetings Planned for 2012

Meetings demand in 2012 appears to be on the rise, according to a recent survey and in-depth interviews of meeting experts, including planners, buyers, and hotel suppliers based around the world, conducted by American Express Meetings & Events. Of the meeting planners surveyed, 42% of North American respondents see signs of increased activity from their clients. Additionally, 60% of meeting suppliers also expect the number of meetings planned to increase. Full story...

IMEX America Means $2.2B in Business

Astounding really. It seems orders placed onsite at IMEX America amounted to US$281 million, according to an exit survey of hosted buyers, and an expected $1.9 billion worth of orders will be placed with exhibitors within the year. The average value of orders placed by hosted buyers during the show was $496,000, with post-show average orders expected to be worth $1 million each. This means that IMEX America hosted buyers have—or will—generate a total of $2.2 billion in business with show exhibitors. Full story...

Struggling Economy Threatens Incentive Travel

What a difference less than a year can make. Unlike the start of 2011, the Incentive Research Foundation’s (IRF) latest survey of incentive industry trends finds planners struggling with the effects of an economy caught in a slow recovery. According to IRF President Melissa Van Dyke, “Survey participants demonstrated that their program’s sensitivity to internal pressures, competitor reactions and perceptions of extravagance were lower than in the spring and actually at a level equivalent to or below 2008." Full story...

New CEIR Research Released on Exhibition Trends

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) announces the results from The 2011 Changing Environment of Exhibitions Study, which explores how the exhibition industry is evolving and provides key market insights into opportunities and threats. Full story...

Celebration, Strategies at Ensemble Confab

Ensemble Travel Group co-presidents Lindsay Pearlman and Libbie Rice celebrated the company's growing membership numbers and booking totals at its annual conference this week and encouraged members to work with company leadership to broaden their methods of gaining and keeping travel business. Rice said Ensemble bookings so far this year were about 15% ahead of last year's pace, while Pearlman spelled out how agencies could maximize revenue and commissions throughout the 18-month life cycle between trips taken by a typical client. Full story...

How to Recognize the "AIG Effect" Before It Happens to You

It's happened before and it just happened again. The most dramatic scenario involved the Greek subsidiary of a multi-national company requesting proposals for luxury incentive travel a couple of months before thousands of layoffs and the Greek economic crisis were announced. This scenario involves a multi-national company with a North American head office. Full story...

Incentive Travel Makes a Comeback

Even during the recession, Jay Hagan refused to stop rewarding his top performers with free hotel stays. "It's really a relatively small part of our total employee budget and has such a big impact," says Hagan, CEO of DriveSavers Data Recovery. "It seemed even more important to continue to do it when things were slow." Now, travel industry experts say, many of Hagan's peers are again rewarding employees as corporate profits have started to rebound and the avalanche of bad publicity about employee incentive travel has dissipated. Full story...

Meeting Leaders Blast Proposal to Limit Federal Employees From Attending Events

Meetings industry leaders are speaking out against regulations proposed by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics that would expand the Lobbyists Gift Ban, preventing federal government employees from attending most trade events and exhibitions where their attendance is paid for by lobbying organizations or lobbyists. Full story...

Is Salina Missing Out?

Back in July, the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce's Sylvia Rice told Salina city commissioners that the city was losing an estimated $650,000 annually because five of the top 10 conventions in Salina since 2008 had left town because of a lack of a convention center with an attached hotel.In addition, Rice, the director of the chamber's Visit Salina division, said two other groups with a spending effect of $321,000 are looking to leave. Rice said she couldn't reveal the name of the conventions that had left because the organizers had asked for anonymity, and the chamber wanted to maintain good relations with them. Full Story...

Incentive Travel For Employees Makes A Comeback

While business travel was slashed across the board when the global economy was in recession three years ago, incentive travel was hit particularly hard following news reports of companies and government agencies spending lavishly on retreats at fancy resorts. The public backlash reached a boiling point in October 2008 when executives at insurance giant AIG spent more than $400,000 for a trip to the luxurious St. Regis in Monarch Beach, Calif., a week after the firm received an $85 billion bailout from taxpayers. Full story...

Newly Released DuPage County, IL Tourism Figures Show Promising Trend

The DuPage CVB announced that DuPage County tourism expenditures continue to rise despite a shaky national economy. According to the U.S. Travel Association and the State of Illinois Office of Tourism (IOT), visitors to DuPage County contributed just under $2 billion to the state’s economy in 2010. This was an increase of 7.67% over 2009’s approximately $1.84 billion. Full story...

New Research on Incentive Travel Participant Viewpoint

The Site International Foundation (SITE Global) and the Incentive Travel Council (ITC) of the Incentive Marketing Association have commissioned Dr. Scott Jeffries and Monmouth University to conduct a joint study focused on the Incentive Travel Participant Viewpoint. Both organizations share the belief that business performance can be positively impacted through the utilization of reward and recognition programs that employ motivational experiences and incentive travel initiatives. Full story...

Readers of Hotel Reviews Have Higher Conversion Rates

People who read online travel reviews are more likely to complete an online travel transaction, according to research firm PhoCusWright. The travel technology research firm found that in 2010, 8% of unique visitors to online travel agencies made an online booking at least once in that month, and approximately 9% of all people who visited a hotel website booked on a hotel website at least once in that month. Full story...

U.S. Travel Association Discusses Impact of 9/11 on Travel Industry

In a recent call with journalists, Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, discussed the impact of 9/11 on the travel industry in advance of the ten-year anniversary and outlined a series of forward-thinking principles that will strengthen security and help eliminate barriers that are discouraging travel to and within the United States. Full story...

GBTA Foundation Unveils Strategic Meetings Management Maturity Index

The GBTA Foundation, the research and education arm of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), in partnership with the Strategic Meetings Management Taskforce and StarCite, Inc., today announced the launch of the Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) Maturity Index. Full story...

Event Experts Debate Whether Collapsing Stages Can be Prevented

The frightening story of the stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair on Saturday, which killed five people and injured more than 40, has ignited debate in the event industry over whether such incidents can be prevented. Last month, the stage at Bluesfest in Ottawa also collapsed, injuring three people. In both cases, sudden gusts of powerful wind have been blamed for the accidents. Full story...

Travel Industry Accounts for More Than One in Ten Jobs Created in 2011

The Labor Department reports the economy added a modest 117,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate remained essentially unchanged at 9.1 percent. Employment gains were rather lackluster across most industries. Posting a slowdown from the 30,000 jobs created in June, the travel industry added 9,200 jobs in July. However, through the first seven months of 2011, travel industry employment has expanded by 106,000 to a level of 7.5 million workers, accounting for 11.4 percent of the total jobs created so far this year. Full story...

Waterpark Resorts: Supply and Demand Update

Our research indicates there are 141 open indoor waterpark resort properties in the U.S. and Canada as of July 2011. There have been or will be one indoor waterpark expansion to an existing hotel, five expansions to existing indoor waterpark resorts, and three new construction indoor waterparks projected for 2011. Our survey found that, in 2011, the growth in indoor waterparks in terms of square footage will be one of the smallest in more than 10 years. There are also six privately operated, standalone indoor waterparks without attached hotels in the U.S. Full story...

Business Travel Quarterly Outlook Report: Business Travel Steady

Business travel spending and volume remained steady in the second quarter of 2011 despite obstacles to economic recovery, reaching an estimated $62.2 billion in spend, according to according to the latest Business Travel Quarterly Outlook - United States from the Global Business Travel Association Foundation. Year over year, this represented growth of 6.3 percent compared to the second quarter of 2010. The forecast for total business travel spending growth this year is 6.9 percent. Full story...

Forecasting the Recovery

Jan Freitag

I had the good fortune of presenting our data at the annual ALIS Summer Update in Dallas. The event’s organizer, Jim Burba, uses the mid-year meeting as a gathering ground for topics that will be presented and debated at future ALIS conferences, which next year will take place in L.A. But while he has assembled the usual A-list of heavy hitters in the hotel real-estate space, he is also convening a mini ALIS conference to show owners and operators how the first half of the year has progressed. Full story...

Another Look at Midscale Performance

Among the U.S. midscale segment’s performance metrics, perhaps most notable is the chain scale’s 6.4% decline in room supply through May 2011, according to data from STR. Indeed, the midscale population during the past decade saw a steady erosion of rooms available, attributable to conversion out of the segment and a lack of new rooms and conversions into the segment, said Brad Garner, COO of the Hendersonville, Tennessee-based research company. Full story...

Event Planning Industry Outlook

I wanted to write a "good news story." Unfortunately, after scanning the headlines, I realized that would be looking at the world through rose tinted glasses. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently presented a less than optimistic briefing about the U.S. economy. The economy has a direct impact on prospects for event planners, hotels, meeting venues and the hospitality industry. Full story...

Business Travel Beats 2011 Expectations, Heads Into 2012 With Steady Growth Outlook

Business travel finishes 2011 with stronger growth than expected, and the industry will see steady expansion in 2012 that is greater than anticipated GDP growth, according to the latest Business Travel Quarterly Outlook – United States from GBTA, sponsored by Visa. Despite the uncertainties in the global economy, the business travel environment will remain healthy. Full story...

5 Top Travel Trends for 2012

What can typically on-the-go planners look forward to in the New Year? According to New York City-based marketing communications company JWT, ever-developing electronics and evolving social/geopolitical trends will continue to impact travelers in ways that will ease the journey and/or make it more interesting. Here are some highlights of JWT's 2012 forecast. Full story...

Defending Fannie and Freddie

Here we go again: another "lavish" conference, another "junket," another "boondoggle." Right? That's what some voices of public perception are trying to tell us... even though a federal regulatory agency has already "defended the spending as a whole." So what is it this time? On the heels of public incomprehension surrounding justifiable conference costs in relation to the supposedly nefarious Muffingate "scandal," here's the scoop on Fox News. Full story...

Lodging Industry Touts Jobs Potential During Congressional Hearing

Jonathan Tisch, co-chair of the board, Loews Corporation and chairman and CEO, Loews Hotels, served as a witness before the Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The hearing, “Tourism in America: Moving Our Economy Forward,” focused on the travel industry’s impact on the U.S. economy. Full story...

The Economy Is Based on Meetings; That Simple

Whenever Congress is in session... that’s a meeting. When you send your kid off to school or college, that’s a meeting. When the bank president and the local AFL-CIO president play golf and do a deal for the new shopping center that will employ hundreds of people to construct and staff, that’s a meeting. When people go out to dinner and support the local restaurant economy, that’s a meeting. Full story...

Business Travel Will Complete a Comeback Year in 2011

Business travel will maintain its upward trajectory in 2012, but a stagnant U.S. economy is driving increasing corporate uncertainty and leading to projections of slower U.S. business travel spending growth next year, according to the latest Business Travel Quarterly Outlook – United States from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), sponsored by Visa. Full story...

Occupy Wall Street Implications: 10 Event Planning Strategies

When the Arab uprisings hit the headlines, an event magazine quoted an industry expert: "The Middle East is off the table." I cautioned that blacklisting destinations was not the answer as "unrest can hit anywhere... at any time." Since then, stock markets have again spiraled out of control. The debt crisis and job market slump have continued. Over the weekend, using the same strategies as the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street reported rallies and demonstrations "in 1,500 cities globally and over 100 U.S. cities from coast to coast." Full story...

About Those Muffins: Do You Know the Whole Story?

Most U.S. taxpayers would agree with the need for restraint in government spending and for government agencies to follow established policies governing procurement of products and services. However, the reported cost of a muffin at a recent government meeting was most likely inaccurate. Full story...

Worries Over Economy Dominate Event Industry Challenges, Survey Says

By a wide margin, concern about the economy is the No. 1 challenge facing special event professionals in the next 12 months. The finding comes from a survey conducted in late August of more than 1,400 Special Events readers. Worries about the sluggish economy—and fears that the situation could get even worse—dominate reader responses. Full story...

$16 for a Muffin? A Justice Department Boondoggle

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General Tuesday released a report blandly titled "Audit of Department of Justice Conference Planning and Food and Beverage Costs." The menu may be tough to digest - it's 148 pages, after all - but political gourmands of all persuasions are likely to find its main entrees simply delectable, especially since they are being presented for public consumption at a time when official Washington is supposed to be tightening its belt and pushing itself away from the table. Full story...

Brown County, WI Hotel Room Tax to Go Up

The hotel room tax in Brown County could be going up soon. But the debate continues over where the money collected should go. When guests check into a hotel in Brown County, an 8% room tax is added to the bill. The money goes toward paying off bonds used to build the KI Convention Center in downtown Green Bay and the Resch Center in Ashwaubenon. Full story...

What Planners Need From a CVB

These are unsettled times for convention and visitor bureaus, for reasons both old and new. On one hand, third-party meeting-planning companies that provide site-selection services have long posed a stiff challenge to bureaus that primarily measure their worth by a traditional benchmark: the number of leads they provide to hotels or rooms they book directly. Full story...

CEIR Semiannual Data Shows Exhibition Industry Outperforms US Economy

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) has released semiannual data that shows the overall exhibition industry gained 2.4% during the first half of 2011 outperforming the overall U.S. economy as compared to GDP only increasing 1.9% over the same period. Given the current fluctuant state of the global economy, this is positive news for the exhibition industry and a key topic of discussion that will be presented at Predict: CEIR's annual outlook conference on September 15 in New York City. Full story...

Global Business Travel Spending to Rise 9.2% in 2011

The GBTA Foundation, the research arm of the Global Business Travel Association, released a comprehensive report analyzing the current state of global business travel spend and growth projections over the next five years. The Global Business Travel Spending Outlook 2011-2015 study, sponsored by Visa, reveals that business travel spend around the world increased 8.4% in 2010, after falling 7.8% in 2009. Global spending on business travel is projected to grow another 9.2% in 2011 to just over $1 trillion. Full story...

Economic Significance Study Quantifies the Impact of Meetings

A landmark study, The Economic Significance of Meetings to the U.S Economy, published by the Convention Industry Council and conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, quantifies for the first time with such scope the economic contributions made by the 1.8 million meetings, trade shows, conventions, congresses and incentive events that take place across the country each year. Full story...

Big 3’s Resurgence Helps Detroit Hotel Industry Pick Up Speed

Selling the millions of cars that came off Detroit-area assembly lines during the most recent recession might have been tough, but filling the more than 1,600 new hotel rooms that came online in downtown Detroit at the same time was likely tougher. Between 2007 and 2009, three new hotels and one renovated property opened in downtown Detroit, just in time for the economy to crater and push the area’s occupancy rate below the dreaded 50% mark. Full story...

U.S. Travel: Overseas Visitor Spending Driving Growth

The travel industry accounted for more than one in nine jobs created in the U.S. economy through the first seven months of the year, as increased spending from overseas travelers and a relatively weak dollar contributed to the rebound in tourism spending. Through July, the travel industry added 106,000 jobs, or more than 11% of the U.S. jobs created year to date, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Full story...

The Real Cost of Social Media

With social media at the height of its popularity, advertisers and companies find it an easy and trendy means of expanding their marketing horizons. While many companies may be fooled by the free cost to open a social media account, many fail to consider the expenses that go into running a social media campaign. Full story...

AH&LA Lodging Industry Profile Charts Profits, Sales, International Arrivals

For 2010, the U.S. lodging industry posted pre-tax profits of $18 billion – up from 16 billion in 2009 – and $127.7 billion in sales – up slightly from $127.2 billion in 2009, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) Lodging Industry Profile (LIP), an annual statistical analysis of the industry. This $127.7 billion contributed to an overall $759 billion in tourism sales*, with resident and international travelers’ expenditures in the U.S. estimated at $2 billion/day; $86.6 million/hour; $1.4 million/minute; and $24,000/second. Full story...

CEIR Predict Discussion Focuses on Lingering Effects of U.S. Economy

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) announced a critical component to its annual outlook conference, Predict. An open discussion about the strength of the U.S. economy and its direct effect on the manufacturing sector will be moderated by Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) President and CEO Chuck Yuska with speakers dmg::events North America, Europe & Australia President Mark Carr and Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Economist and Council Director Don Norman. Full story...

Veto of Funding to Champaign County CVB Still Stands

The Urbana City Council voted 4-3 not to override the mayoral veto of funding to the Champaign County Convention and Visitors Bureau, or CVB. There is hope for CVB funding, however, as many council members said they supported a budget amendment to provide some funding for the bureau, though less than the approximately $72,000 that was previously allocated. The council will discuss funding options for the bureau at its next meeting Monday. Full story...

HIP: Hotel Industry Stronger Than Overall Economy

After a slight decline of 0.5% in May, HIP climbed 1.4% in June, according to e-forecasting.com’s expanded HIP report. HIP, the Hotel Industry Pulse Index, is composite indicator that gauges business activity in the U.S. hotel industry in real time, similar to a GDP measure for the industry. The latest monthly change brought the index to a reading of 100.2. The index was set to equal 100 in 2000. Full story...

One Union Agrees to McCormick Place Labor Rules

Public officials and the leader of one major union at McCormick Place sought to reassure the trade show industry Tuesday that the convention complex will remain competitive with rivals in spite of a legal setback this week. Gov. Pat Quinn said lawmakers may need to return to Springfield this summer to consider changes to labor rules at McCormick Place, now that a federal court has tossed out earlier rules enacted by the legislature last year aimed to cut exhibitor costs. Full story...

HSMAI: Panelists Stress Revenue Management

Month after month in 2011, the U.S. hotel industry is selling a record number of rooms, yet rates remain rather stagnant, mainly because the pricing process has become so complex. Therefore, over the next ten years, the revenue manager is going to be the most important position in a company, presenters said at the HSMAI Revenue Optimization Conference. Full story...

How to Control Corporate Meeting Spend

In recent years, corporations have increased scrutiny of the way money is spent on large meetings. But according to a Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) Management Institute Survey, it’s small meeting management that could provide the biggest cost savings. Full story...

Hotel Problems Solved Once and For All

Today, it’s not politically correct to use the term “problems”—everyone wants to call them “issues” or “concerns” or, my favorite, “opportunities.” But, let’s face it, in the hotel business, we have problems and we need solutions. Recognizing this fact is the first step toward managerial recovery. Full story...

Action Alert: Help Protect the Corporation for Travel Promotion

This week, House Republicans are threatening to eliminate the Corporation for Travel Promotion as a part of their "YouCut" campaign. Congress established the Corporation for Travel Promotion, a private non-profit entity, in 2010 to create a marketing and promotion program that would help the U.S. compete for more visitors. Each week, spending cut proposals are posted on the YouCut website, where citizens are able to vote for which government program to end. Full story...

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. Full story...