Meeting Planner Careers

If you are a meeting planner searching for an exciting, innovative new venue for an upcoming convention, conference or trade show that will ensure great attendance, you should consider hosting your next event on a cruise ship. Whether you opt for a dockside charter or an event at sea, cruise ships – which can accommodate up to 5,000 people – will significantly increase the appeal of your event.

Attending a convention on a cruise ship will be something different and exciting for most people, and will be alluring enough to convince any indecisive people that they should definitely attend.

Cruise ships offer a self-contained venue with all of the services and amenities you require to host a successful event or meeting at sea and can be planned in a way that will support a variety of event budgets. Cruising also provides the opportunity to have a willingly captive audience for your event, especially if you opt for a full-ship charter, which allows you to customize the entire venue and schedule, including liberal logo placement to increase awareness and recognition of your brand.

Cruise events are also much more cost effective than a land based venue, since cruising is typically all inclusive. In addition to lodging, meals and entertainment, cruise ships offer state-of-the-art meeting facilities and equipment, decorations, and other items which are included on a cruise ship but will generally cost extra at a land based venue. A cruise event can cost as much as 40 percent less than a land based venue.

When you opt to host your next conference, trade show or convention on a cruise ship, it is sure to be a memorable event that will have the attendees talking about you and your planning services long after they are back on shore, ensuring that they will remember your company name the next time they are in need of event planning services.

An all inclusive cruise event can save you up to 40% compared to land based venues since so much is included. Meals, meeting rooms, A/V, coffee breaks, activities, entertainment and even room service are part of the all-inclusive cruise fare.

In the past, the only type of participation available to meeting attendees was live participation. If individuals were unable to make it to the meeting in person, they simply missed out on the information being presented as well as the opportunity to network. Today, live participation is not required for individuals to be 100 percent involved in a meeting or event. Individuals can be a part of the event or meeting through virtual participation. Events in which both live and virtual participation are offered are called hybrid meetings. Virtual participants can use social media to interact with other meeting participants, both live and virtual.

Hybrid events are ideal in some situations for a variety of reasons. Businesses that have restricted budgets may not have the luxury of traveling in a tight economy. A hybrid meeting would allow these businesses to participate without the added expense of travel, accommodations, and food. Hybrid events can open meetings up to a more diverse audience and provide more exposure within the marketplace. By opening meetings up to a larger audience, businesses have the opportunity to expand their networking capabilities and make new connections. There are many reasons why hybrid meetings are valuable and should be considered when planning an important event.

Cruises are a great option for corporate events, meetings and, of course, vacations, but many people – including wedding planners – often assume that cruise ship weddings are too expensive to fit most couples’ budgets. On the contrary, cruise ship weddings can actually save a couple and their family a considerable amount of money, in some cases slashing the costs nearly in half when compared to a land-based resort wedding and a separate honeymoon.

When couples opt for a cruise wedding, their friends and family will have a great time before and after the wedding without the couple having to worry about entertaining or housing out of town guests. They will also benefit from having a ready-made venue that is well-versed in onboard weddings, as well as the benefit of one, predetermined price, which will assist them significantly when determining their budget and preparing for their big day. If a wedding planner is part of the mix, they will find that planning cruise ship weddings is a simple process when they take advantage of the ship crew’s existing knowledge and resources.

The planning process can also be made simpler and more convenient by using the group cruise planning tool available at Seasite.com, a useful tool that wedding, meeting, event and incentive travel planners swear by.

According to a US News & World Report on December 28, 2009:
“A Meeting Planner is one of the 50 best careers of 2010, and should have a strong growth over the next decade.”

According to the weekly news magazine's report, the employment of meeting and convention planners "is expected to grow faster than the average for all professions over the next decade or so" thanks to the "growing importance of meetings to increasingly global companies."

Because the recession caused a contraction of the meetings industry in 2009, U.S. News said today's meeting planners have to be "tougher," "willing to negotiate for lower costs and better perks," and "willing to face tough questions on budgets and return on investment."

Despite companies' reduced meeting budgets, however — and in spite of the AIG effect, which caused an unfortunate association of off-site meetings with corporate excess in 2009 — U.S. News concluded that "most organizations recognize the value of the face-to-face meeting — as not just a perk but an imperative for companies that have greater global reaches."

Anticipate this future need for meeting planners and establish yourself by enrolling in a Meeting and Event Planning Certificate Program. This type of certificate program will give you the knowledge to position yourself for the future with a new career or enhance your current job or validate skills you are already using in your personal or professional life.

A great meeting planner is an exceptional listener. Developing good listening skills can be hard work, especially when so much of the work takes place over the telephone or through emails. Do you spend a good portion of your time thinking about how you are going to respond to client’s queries as he is talking? If you do, you’re likely to miss something important. Clients are often anxious about their budgets and their public reputations, especially if they are asking for help planning incentive travel.

It’s common to jot down notes when speaking with a client over the phone. It can be helpful to mirror back to the client what you understood him to say. This can help him clarify exactly what he means, which may not be what he said at all.

Listen optimistically. Don’t shoot down his ideas immediately even if you know what he wants can’t be done. It could be possible to amend his ideas or build on them to the satisfaction of both parties.

The ability to stay positive during an economic downturn inspires confidence in your client. That doesn’t mean you promise him the world when you know all you can reasonably deliver is the Jersey shore. It just means committing yourself to the project enthusiastically.

Organizing events may come naturally to you and in fact you might have helped someone organize an event too! The best example is your own birthday parties or your best pal’s marriage. These are memorable events and there surely must have been some planning involved. The guests’ list, selection of food and drinks, gifts, cakes, and the list goes on. These things require planning, smaller or bigger, skilled or semi-skilled. Similarly, most business events require planning and arrangements in advance. And planning business meetings has indeed become a skilled profession nowadays.

The event planners as we call them, plan conferences and meetings, look after coordination and conventions, and are responsible for smooth functioning of all the activities involved. The meeting planner’s job is to look after every small and big detail of an event. For example, if the meeting takes places out of town, the planner coordinates the flights and accommodation for the participants arriving from outside. Professional event planners are usually hired by the companies that lack time or skills to organize and assist a conference. Read more…