Top Industry Leaders Discuss the Future at PCMA Annual Meeting January 14, 2010
It was standing room only at The PCMA Masters Series at the organization's annual meeting in Dallas on Tuesday. The session, "Top Industry Leaders on the Future of Meetings," offered a lively discussion in which virtually every top industry association leader participated, moderated by Loews Hotels, Jonathan M. Tisch.
The panelists were Brenda J. Anderson, Site; Roger Dow, U.S. Travel Association; Michael D. Gehrisch, Destination Marketing Association International; John H. Graham, ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership; Bruce MacMillan, Meeting Professionals International; Deborah Sexton, Professional Convention Management Association; and Martin Sirk, International Congress & Convention Association.
Tisch warned of the possibility of over-leveraged hotels going under as loans come due in 2010. "Some of the best hotel operators are vulnerable to this," he said. "Lack of financing has stopped the construction of new hotel inventory which means there will be less hotels to clog the supply of hotel rooms."
When asked if whether incentives will be a vital part of travel again, Brenda Anderson said that the industry and corporate end users are in the process of redefining incentives. "Incentive practitioners are changing the value proposition of what incentives offer," Anderson said. "There is a renewed emphasis on proving ROI and economy and value are now elements of program designs that once emphasized luxury."
Roger Dow stressed the importance of building on the industry-wide effort to present a unified lobbying and public relations initiative that successfully changed the perception of meetings and events in 2009. "We've got to get some segments of the industry who are not participating in the effort on board," he said. "The airline industry is the most important player not at the table with the industry initiatives."
Incentive/IMRA Sales Excellence Awards Winners Announced Incentive magazine announced the winners of its 15th annual Sales Excellence Awards earlier this week, celebrating the best and most successful independent representative firms in the industry.
U.S. Travel Association Forms Meetings, Incentives, Trade Show Council The U.S. Travel Association has created a new board member council that will build a proactive meetings and incentives research, communications, government relations and promotion agenda, it announced yesterday.
President Signs Travel Promotion Act President Barack Obama today signed the Travel Promotion Act into law, creating the public-private Corporation for Travel Promotion tasked with marketing America as a tourism destination around the globe.
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