Corporate Travel Destinations

Large events, meetings, and seminars have traditionally be scheduled at conference centers and/or hotels, but that is all changing now. Cruise ships are the new ‘it’ place to host events of almost any size, for many good reasons. Here are a trio of very good reasons to consider:

• Go places, do things – One of the top reasons to opt for cruises over more traditional meeting environments is the fact that cruise liners take your places while you work instead of taking you to places to get work done. Add to this the limited distance between work and play, and cruises are nothing if not efficient and convenient.
• Amazing facilities – Hotels come in different quality levels, usually measured in stars. Cruise ships are an all-star affair, and every passenger is made to feel like an all-star. Putting a dollar value on having meeting participants felt like that are having their every whim met is nearly impossible.
• Affordable – Meetings and events held on cruise liners are surprisingly affordable. Why? Because one companies is providing everything. Instead of distributing the overhead of a catering company, a hotel, and a conference center over each participant, cruise liners have a single overhead to distribute. It is all about cost of customer acquisition, and that is what makes cruise meetings affordable.

Beautiful Acapulco has been attracting visitors since the Spanish arrived in the early 1500's.  For more than 200 years, the city's geography provided an ideal haven for Spanish galleons loaded with precious cargo, which prompted an annual merchant fair.  It's a tradition that has continued, with the city playing host to many large conferences at meeting hotels and the Acapulco Convention Center, which features more than 180,000 sq.ft. of total event space.

Acapulco is the original Mexican resort, linked to the Hollywood jet set of the 1950's and '60's, and still features a vibrant nightlife. 

Acapulco is still one of the exotic and popular corporate travel destinations that your incentive trip winners will love.

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.