Corporate Travel Destinations

Here is a test for meeting planners: You have a client who wants it all. The meeting has to be centrally located for people coming from many areas of the United States, must be inexpensive and not in a gaming town for image purposes. Not only that, the facilities have to be high tech and offer good food as well. This is not an ordinary client, and you want to overdeliver.

Well, you can. You can also offer lower-cost transportation, an image overhaul for the meeting (adding a small image boost to the company), and beautiful accommodations for guests. You can do all this by convincing your client to hold the meeting in the American Midwest.

More than a bunch of grey, industrial cities, the Midwest offers better pricing on many aspects of your meeting than the more popular destinations in coastal cities, tropical areas, and game communities. Because it will appear that your client is offering a boon to a part of the country that is usually suffering some economic woe or another, it will improve the company image. Continue reading »

The tanked economy may be old news–and news we’re all tired of listening to–but has turned out to be a boon for meeting planners and those booking incentive travel. Ovation Travel Group predicts that the recent tears-long trend of increased rates will be reversed in 2009, and rates might drop. Ovation recently polled hundreds of hotels through the world, and found that some have already lowered their rates, so the trend may be starting.

With over 400 hotels responding to a survey, Ovation reports that this year hotels have already lowered their 2008 rates by 4.31 percent. The company says that overseas, 35.6 percent of the properties report their rates are down by 11 percent, and another 27 percent have held steady. This makes a total average drop in rates of 4.67 percent.

Here in the United States 37.1 percent of our hotels report reducing their rates by 10.2 percent, which mirrors properties worldwide. However, more of our hotels have maintained the 2008 rates–38 percent of domestic properties did not raise prices in 2009. This makes “Buy American” much easier for the domestic planner who is looking to book incentive groups locally.

Even though financially things are tough around the world, that doesn’t mean that you can’t send people on worldwide travel. If you have properties with which you have great relationships already, they may be willing to reduce rates for especially large bookings. These days everyone is fighting for business, so you might as well take advantage of it–find the hotels that have lowered their rates and reward their good sense with your business.