www.asaenet.org ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership www.asae.org/publications Association Management publication (published by
ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership) www.pcma.org Professional Convention Management Association www.conventionindustry.org Convention Industry Council
GLOSSARY
Articles and Bylaws: Rules adopted by an organization for managing its inter- nal affairs.
Association: An organized group of individuals and/or companies who band together to accomplish a common purpose, usually to provide for the needs of its members. Usually nonprofit. See also Trade Association.
Association Agreement: 1) A union contract covering companies and unions that bargain on an area-wide basis. 2) A union contract negotiated by a group of employers through an employer’s association with the union rep- resenting their employees.
Association Booth/Stand: An exhibit booth/stand at which an association pro- vides information about its purpose and services to members and prospec- tive members.
Association Staff: An individual who works for an association.
Attendee Brochure: Direct mail piece sent to current and prospective attendees that promotes the benefits of attending a specific event.
Attendee Scope: Where attendees come from. It is directly related to the spend- ing characteristics of attendees who fall into each of these categories: Inter- national: Draws a national and international event audience; 15% or more of event delegates reside outside of event host country. National: Draws a national event audience; more than 40% of delegates reside outside of a 400 mile (640 km) radius of event city. Regional: 60% of delegates reside within a 400 mile (640 km) radius of event city; delegates may reside in a multistate area and/or a regionally homogenous international area. State/
Province: More than 80% of delegates reside in event state/province (or event-sponsoring state/province when held in state/province other than home state/province; more than 20% of delegates reside outside a 50 mile (80 km) radius of event site. State/provincial audiences are less inclined to use air travel and local auto rental than regional audiences. Local: 80% of delegates reside within a 50 mile (80 km) of radius of event site; local audiences typ- ically do not require overnight accommodations.
Trade Association: Group of persons or businesses in a particular trade or industry. Generally these organizations are exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Trade Center: Special purpose office building oriented toward a specific group of users. Typically, wholesalers in a specific industry (e.g., furniture, apparel) have showrooms to exhibit products to buyers.
General Session: A meeting open to all those in attendance at a event.
Plenary Session: General assembly for all participants.
APPENDIXES
The following two articles pertain to association meetings convention indus- try trade publications. Collectively, they provide further insight and varying per- spectives into the association meetings market. Reprinted with permission.
Appendix A: Association Meetings: Taking Care of Business
Appendix B: The Association Segment Provides Reliability to Beleaguered Suppliers
Source: Hill, R. Meetings MidAmerica, July/August 2005.
Association meetings, formerly given little appreciation by suppliers and des- tinations, are now being courted like the belle of the ball.
As the economy boomed in the late 1990s, hotels and destinations focused increasingly on lucrative corporate groups, with many properties lowering the available number of rooms for meetings altogether so there would be more room for high-revenue independent corporate and leisure travelers.
That was before the combination of a sputtering economy and Sept. 11 caused much of the corporate and leisure business to dry up.
In the poor economy, corporate groups have been canceling or scaling back significantly, but with the average association drawing about 26 percent of
its revenue from its annual conference—second only to the 41 percent that comes from dues—the meetings must go on, says Chris Vest, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based American Society of Association Executives.
“Most of our contacts and colleagues in the hospitality community have been very forthcoming about the fact that corporate business has slacked off to a significant degree post-September 11, and that association meetings and conventions have really been the sort of backbone of their group busi- ness,” Vest explains. “I think association meetings have always been an important part of their business, but it seems as if it’s gotten even more vital in the past eight months.”
Loyal Customers Letty Canizalez, national sales manager for the San Diego area’s Loews Coronado Bay Resort, says that as corporate groups are down- sizing and cutting product launches, associations remain dependable.
“If you book something in association, it’s hardly ever canceled,” she says.
“And they are loyal. If the really love your hotel or [chain] they keep coming back.”
She says that with many attendees of association meetings paying their own expenses, as opposed to going on a company tab, the price is key. With the soft hospitality market causing lower prices, she says groups that usually meet in three-star hotels are how able to consider her property or other resort properties.
In San Francisco, where the technology boom pushed room rates to all-time highs, some properties were reserving fewer rooms for groups and were pricing many associations out of the market, says Jeff Doane, director of sales and marketing for The Fairmont Hotel San Francisco.
“There was a real synergy between the association market and this hotel for a number of years,” he explains.” And then the economy got hot and we went through our renovation and I think we tried to reposition ourselves and avoid that market a little bit, which was definitely the wrong decision because [the association market] is such a perfect match for this hotel. So we are very interested in re-establishing the ties we had with the association market.”
He says his hotel’s high ratio of meeting space to rooms, 55,000 square feet to 600 rooms, makes the San Francisco Fairmont a good bet for associa- tions, plus he says associations tend to look for properties that capture the essence of a destination, which he says The Fairmont does.
Doane says San Francisco hotels were lulled into a false sense of security by the strong leisure and independent corporate travel that was pushing up ADR and filling rooms.
“I think in general that you learn certain hard lessons when you go through economic times like we have over the past year and a half, and you realize how important [long-standing] relationships are to the hotel business,” he says. “Hopefully, it’s a lesson we’ve learned well enough.”
Mark Theis, vice president of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau’s convention division, says the City by the Bay is traditionally a three- legged stool of a destination relying on equal parts group, independent cor- porate, and leisure travelers. But now he says the group business, which is comprised of 65 percent to 70 percent of association meetings, is carrying the bulk of the weight.
“Candidly, two years ago all the hotels were dropping [the number of rooms they would set aside for group] blocks to get the higher-yielding corporate business and high-yielding corporate traveler,” Theis notes.
He says there fortunately is enough of a base of stable association business to help somewhat offset losses in other sectors. The CVB has added more sales and marketing resources to attract the group business in recent months, and also to spread the word that the city has more availability and lower prices than in recent years.
“Clearly, this has been an eye-opening slap in the face that everyone needs to be reminded of who are our customers that are with us in good times and bad times, and we as a community don’t lose sight of our regular, loyal cus- tomers,” Theis says. “It also wakes us up to ensure we don’t get sloppy when [other segments of business recover]. The last months have re-educated the masses to ensure that we are not overlooking these people, and it’s forced us to sell smarter and friendlier than perhaps two years ago.”
Richard Grant, spokesman for the Denver Metro CVB, says CVBs have been less guilty of slighting associations because they have always made large associations their emphasis. “A convention bureau does what a hotel can’t do on its own. It’s hard for them to go after a citywide [alone],” he explains.
Quantity Counts But it is not the citywide meeting alone that the CBVs try to court. Grant says an association can have as many as 50 additional meet- ings each year in addition to the annual convention. “Another beauty of going after the association market is you may fail to get their big meeting, but you may pick up some smaller meetings; it puts you on their radar,” he says.
Grant says that because associations spend more than $56 million of the
$83 million spent annually on meetings, conventions, and seminars (accord- ing to ASAE figures), it is a segment that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Kent Lindeman, owner of Corte Madera, Calif.-based association manage- ment firm Holland-Parlette Associates, says he is now considering destina- tions and properties for his associations that he hasn’t sent out RFPs to in years.
He says San Francisco is the prime example of what’s happened in recent years. He hasn’t had one of his four national association meet in San Francisco in five years because of escalating prices, but is now including the city in RFPs again.
Source: Hayes, T., Meetings West, August 2002.
He says second-tier cities have benefited the most because associations that once would not have considered meeting in a second-tier city were forced by economics to go there and were pleased with the results.
“A lot of groups we have, have gone to a second-tier city and they liked it,”
Lindeman says. “They felt it was a comfortable fit and they didn’t get lost in the destination.” He says another trend is that hotels are lowering attri- tion penalties from the once 90 percent to 100 percent threshold to as low as 70 percent or 80 percent.
Lindeman adds that low prices are now pushing many associations to book as far as six years out so they can lock in good rates. Personally, he prefers to book no more than three years out because properties can change so much in six years.
But he doesn’t blame those who are booking further in advance when hotel sales staffs are wooing the business so strongly. Denver’s Grant says associ- ations have traditionally placed accessibility, facilities and cost at the top of the list when considering a destination. But in recent years three other factors have joined those concerns: safety of the city, location of the center and services provided, and the image and drawing power of the city.
Denver is working to polish its image. “It’s tougher to sell the glitz and romantic images of the city, so we’ve spent a lot of time branding the city so that everything you see about it is consistent: that it’s a young, highly- educated, energetic city,” he explains.
San Francisco’s Theis says that his city’s appeal as a tourist destination helps it to draw association meetings because the groups know that attendance will be high when held there.