Meeting Planner Careers

MIAMI–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–Cruise event specialists Landry & Kling Inc. have announced a strategic partnership between their company Seasite.com, the first cruise portal for meetings and events, and i-Meet.com, the professional and social network for meeting and event planners and suppliers.

“Facebook and Twitter are important to our overall social media strategy, but with our new Seasite online community, we’re giving our customers and users an expanded experience in i-Meet’s global community”

The partnership introduces a unique, online community on i-Meet.com for Seasite.com users and prospects worldwide. Leveraging i-Meet’s fast-growing network and social media platform, Seasite’s online community will feature industry leading technology, group special interest “hot spots”, and provide a way for people to connect and interact with over 20,000 industry professionals around the world.

“Our customers have expressed an interest in a community-based social platform to complement Seasite’s cruise sourcing and planning tools,” said Jo Kling, CEO of Seasite.com. “We are excited to be partnering with i-Meet and its meetings industry-specific social network approach; we can now deliver a unique experience to our customers that’s in line with the way people do business today.”

“It’s really a very natural progression to introduce social networking to cruise meetings customers,” said John Pino, i-Meet’s Founder and CEO, “and marrying Seasite’s cruise sourcing technology with an online communications and collaboration channel enabled through i-Meet’s global community of planners, buyers and suppliers will create advantages for everyone.”

“Facebook and Twitter are important to our overall social media strategy, but with our new Seasite online community, we’re giving our customers and users an expanded experience in i-Meet’s global community,” said Jo Kling “This is an industry first that will allow our users to network with other professionals and communicate what’s on their minds.”

The partnership will allow the growth of active mini-communities for i-Meet and Seasite.com members based on their areas of interest. The groups will be hosted and administered by Seasite’s expert cruise industry professionals. “Friend-ing” others, “following” suppliers, and subscribing to and publishing blogs will round out the experience.

About Landry & Kling and Seasite.com

Landry & Kling Inc., cruise event specialists since 1982, recently introduced Seasite.com, the first online cruise platform for meeting professionals. Seasite is an industry sourcing tool to search, select and plan group cruises, with access to 35 cruise lines in one site, meeting-friendly search criteria, e-RFP’s, meeting/function room capacities, dining details and other unique tools available nowhere else. Visit www.seasite.com or www.landrykling.com.

About i-Meet

Created by the Founder of StarCite, www.i-Meet.com is focused on building the industry’s most relevant worldwide online community for the meeting and event industry. With 20,000 members from 130 countries around the world to date, i-Meet brings social networking, web 2.0 tools, work flow and relationship opportunities, and industry intelligence to its members and suppliers. Visit i-meet.com.

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.

Here are some great resources for those of you seeking employment as a meeting or event planner.  

MeetingJobs.com offers a job search website for the meeting planning industry. In addition, you'll find resources and tools, such as webinars, resume writing help, salary planning tools and more.  

Whether you are a job seeking candidate or an employer looking to hire, you can connect with one another at MeetingJobs.com. Their website offers numerous ways to effectively and efficiently put hiring officials and job candidates together.

Another good job search site for meeting planners is located on the Professional Convention Management Association website.  PCMA offers a job search at their Career Center. Whether you are looking for meeting planner jobs, hotel or convention sales jobs or other hospitality jobs, it's important to grow your knowledge and network in today's market to succeed in a leadership position. The PCMA Career Center has high-level meetings industry job opportunities and resources available for you to hone your leadership skills and continue to advance your planner career.

The media got their first look at Seasite.com, the first online web portal designed solely for the cruise meetings industry, at the Motivation Show in Chicagto.

At the press conference, Seasite’s CEO, Josephine Kling along with Joyce Landry, CEO of Landry & Kling, unveiled their groundbreaking new product to the international media. Also participating were executives of the nine group-savvy cruise lines who view Seasite as an innovative productivity tool that will expand the global cruise group market. Seasite’s founding marketing partners are Royal Caribbean International, Carnival Cruise Lines, Regent Seven Seas, Silversea Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Lines, MSC Cruises, SeaDream Yacht Club, and Sea Cloud Cruises. Each line has a deep and rich “mini-site” within Seasite.

In attendance at the press conference were Ron Gulasky, Celebrity Cruises; Konstantin Bissias, Sea Cloud Cruises; Aideen Mulholland, Carnival Cruise Lines; Mark Conroy, Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Front row, from left: Brandon Townsley, Norwegian Cruise Line; Lori Cassidy, Royal Caribbean International; Clem Galindo, Royal Caribbean International; Maritza Bush, Sea Cloud Cruises; Sean Mahoney, Silversea Cruises; Joyce Landry, CEO, Landry & Kling; Jo Kling, CEO, Seasite.com; Bruce Setloff, Seadream Yacht Club; Cherie Weinstein, Carnival Cruise Lines; Mario Villalobos, Regent Seven Seas; and Chris Stanley, Silversea Cruises.

“It’s a planner’s dream,” said Lori Cassidy, Royal Caribbean’s director, corporate & incentive sales, adding,“It’s something the industry has needed for years, and will definitely help our industry grow.” Sean Mahoney, Silversea’s global vice president, corporate sales stated: “I am thoroughly impressed… Seasite provides planners with a powerful and independent resource.” Rick Sasso, pesident of MSC Cruises, added, “Seasite’s innovative tools, such as those meeting space grids and the unique charter search will help every group make sound cruise choices.” And Aideen Mulholland, Carnival’s director, corporate & incentive, calls Seasite “a cutting edge tool…they’ll have to see it to believe it! What a time saver.”

The brainchild of global cruise event specialist, Landry & Kling, Seasite’s searchable database of 35 cruise lines provides the single most comprehensive source for savvy, do-it-yourself planners and novices alike. Featuring never-before-published data harvested exclusively by and for Seasite, planners can now find all the facts, tools, and resources needed to launch a successful incentive cruise event or meeting-at-sea in one place. Best of all, there are expert cruise advisors to support Seasite users from beginning to end.

Furthermore, Seasite transforms users into educated cruise buyers with ship-sourcing tools and provides the first group cruise RFP online. One single RFP can be sent to multiple cruise lines, generating electronic bottom-line quotes for a quick and accurate “apples to apples” comparison. Pricing is the same as buying direct from the cruise lines; there is no cost or membership fee to use Seasite.

For more information on Seasite.com, visit www.seasite.com or call 888-713-1371 for a personally-guided introduction.

If you are now entering the field of event planning, you may feel like you are barging in at the worst possible time. The government and public are both highly critical of the meetings industry, some of the companies that got bailouts also got in trouble for meetings (and incentives), and companies are very wary about going forward with anything that looks like an extravagance.

However, you may have come at the best time for your long-term future. See, companies and business people of all kinds were becoming just a little complacent. What you are seeing now are businesses ramping up sales techniques, motivating teams as best they can, and changing the way they do business.

This will benefit you because you will have to learn straightaway what it is to be lean and mean. You will learn how to keep costs down right now because you won’t have the chance to spend too much money on sticky notes and paper clips. You are not going to have the chance to say, “Oh my, here comes the recessions–I’d better tighten my belt.” Yours will start out cinched. Read more…