Meeting Planner Careers

When a company calls you to plan a meeting or  event for them, they are thinking, “I don't have much money to spend!” They know the expense of a meeting is more than the checks they will write for the event–it may also include the employee-hours lost at their company and a host of other charges that can nickel and dime them.

However, far from putting pennies on the eyes of their meetings, you can help them save by doing what you do best–finding the right way for the company to gather the number of people necessary for the best results.

One way you can help them is to streamline your own business. Make sure you are automated, and that you have online access to everything you need to save time and money. Find all the real-time booking sites you can, and open accounts on meeting planner websites. Find all the online instruments you can to make your own operation run smoothly and efficiently.

Next, you may be able to serve your client best by suggesting a virtual meeting. This is especially true if some of the participants have to travel long distances. See if VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) can help you. There are lots of high-bandwidth sites out there with very high quality VoIP service. Find them and make them your friends. Also don’t rule out the idea of web conferencing–if your clients need to be able to share files, this is your answer for high tech virtual meetings.

For face-to-face meetings, make sure your automated Internet contacts give you the best prices and service for your clients. If you need to plan meals, try the ideas behind Banquetology, which is a way of a greater variety of food at smaller portions. This has the added benefit of appealing to those of us who are watching our girths as well as our bottom lines.

Do yourself and your clients a favor, and trim your own cost of planning as you help them trim their meeting costs. You will both benefit in the long run.

Renaissance Orlando Hotel at SeaWorld

Everyone is concerned about how the public perceives their meeting plans. So much so, that hotels such as the Renaissance Orlando Hotel at SeaWorld have dropped the word “resort” from their names.

The former Renaissance Orlando Hotel Resort at SeaWorld changed its name for “perception’ sake” according to the director of sales and marketing but also because it does not fit the image generally associated with a resort.

The Ritz-Carleton Hotels recently introduced a new package they hope will attract new meetings in 2010. Aptly named Meetings Within Reach, the package reminds the business community “It’s not extravagant if it produces results.”

Privacy has never been more important to meeting planners’ clientele. Properties, which have a proven record of accomplishment of protecting guests’ privacy, are in high demand. Limo services and lavish meals are the exception now rather than the rule. Do not attract attention to yourself seems to be the order of the day.

Is it necessary to use a company pseudonym when booking a hotel? Will you request that the hotel switchboard block media calls to the company’s VIPs? Will virtual meetings become the rule of the future? No doubt, there will be some permanent changes in meeting planning, but face to face meetings will not fall by the wayside, just the perception that meeting planning is party planning.