Meeting managers should be formulating buying strategies that will work in the long term as well as the short term Read More »

How interesting that there's been so much talk lately about traditional corporate travel and meetings policies losing impact, when it looks like this year compliance to use of preferred suppliers will be more important than ever. Read More »

USA Today calls social media tool, Pinterest, "the latest Web addiction for millions." Is it for your meeting attendees, too? If so, it's time you got involved. Read More »

I just read the news: Jack O'Neill is retiring at the end of the year as President of Carlson Wagonlit Travel North America. CWT's Hakan Ericsson, currently president of the agency's operations in Latin America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, will assume Jack's role.

So I guess this is finally official -- as Jack and I have discussed this off-the-record several times. All I can say is that our industry is losing a wonderful executive who is a true gentleman and icon. Read More »

As I said in my last post, 'tis budgeting and negotiation season, and to help meeting managers, all kinds of forecasts are coming out of the woodwork. And because they use different methods of analysis, the forecast numbers don't always match and agree. That's why I was so happy to see that many of the projections have found a home, existing side by side in beautiful graphics, on Data Hub's blog at TheBeat.travel. Read More »

On Thursday, September 15th, I moderated and presented in a webinar about creating and implementing a Global Duty of Care plan. It was our second webinar in a series about Global Duty of Care, and, once again, like during the first webinar, I have some very revealing statistics on the poll questions that we asked.First, though, just in case you missed both webinars, and you're unfamiliar with the concept of Duty of Care, here's a definition: Duty of Care is a company's obligation to protect empl Read More »

I just read a fascinating and slightly scary article by Michael J. Shapiro, the tech beat reporter at Meetings & Conventions magazine. Michael writes about so-called location-based marketing tools that can pinpoint the location of attendees, say, in a cavernous convention trade show and then market services to them. Read More »

Ancillary fees -- from airlines, hotels and car rentals -- are getting more attention these days. And for good reason: travel and meetings managers want to get their hands on some idea of measurement of ancillary fees so that they can manage them. Read More »

What can we learn from the crisis in Japan, as far as strategic meetings management goes? Read More »

By now many of you have seen the horrific earthquake and tsunami devastation of the once beautiful Japanese countryside and fishing villages in Fukushima. I have family ties to that region of Japan so the news really hit home for me. While most of my immediate family are well into being third- and fourth- generation Americans, I personally still have friends and some distant relatives in Japan.

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