The Amelia Island Plantation, a Starwood Resort located just 29 miles north of
Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), is offering some great promotions for meeting planners, no matter what the size of your event!
Current promotions at the Amelia Island Plantation include:
For travel dates through December 2010
* Complimentary Airport Transportation
* Complimentary Group Recreation
* Complimentary One Hour Welcome Reception
* 25%off Audio Visual
* 25% off Golf Greens Fees
- Attrition-Free Meetings for Associations
- Five for Fifty (For every 50 accommodations paid, you receive five complimentary accommodations!)
- Small Meetings Equal Big Savings (Lowest available rates through December 2009)
In addition to these promotions, Amelia Island Plantation offers two inclusive plans , the
Amelia Conference Plan and the
Island Incentive Plan, to make meal and recreational costs more manageable for guests throughout their stay at the hotel.
With nearly 50,000 square feet of meeting space, 30 meeting rooms, and 600 sleeping rooms, this Florida resort has something to offer for everyone! Check out the
hotel's promotional details now, as some of these offers won't last long.
View more information about
Amelia Island Plantation on the
Cvent Supplier Network
According to the 2009 HSMAI Event Planner Survey, when it comes to suppliers, meeting planners are focused on three key areas: general venues, promotional items and event planning software. The survey was conducted at the 9th Annual HSMAI's Affordable Meetings Mid-America Conference & Exhibition in Chicago.
The survey's findings are not too surprising, seeing as how planners want to find and connect with suppliers that are offering significant value add deals. In regards to software, this trend makes sense seeing as how companies report an increasing reliance on technology in their meeting management and marketing, according to the report.
Overall, the survey's 189 attendees are focusing on software and best practices that will promote efficiency in how they conduct meetings. They want venues with value, not necessarily just a strong brand.
Other key findings include:
• Most meeting planners expect no more than 10 meetings this year
• Budgets have decreased, but for the most part the decline has been moderate—a 10 percent decrease at most
• Most planners are expecting attendance rates of 100 to 1,000 people
• Customer service was named a top reason that planners select a specific event venue this year, joining last year's noted factors of price, location and size of event space
• Environmental issues (eco-friendly operations, smart building design, etc.) and brand recognition have a low impact on venue selection
While the
Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority struggles, other markets are surviving, even thriving, in the meetings market. The Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau, for one, is already
25 percent ahead of where it was in 2008 for convention bookings.
Emily Boling Lynn, director of convention center sales at the CVB, told the
Memphis Business Journal that there's a strong possibility of booking 100,000 room nights this year, something that's never happened before in the city. Memphis' Cook Convention Center has events booked to 2017. Conferences planned for 2009 include the National Baptist Convention and the Urban Network Music and Entertainment Summit.
However, positive meeting sales do not necessarily mean that the city's tourism and hospitality business has not taken a hit from the economy.
"Business and leisure travel have been affected to the point where both segments have been greatly reduced," John Oros, executive vice president of the CVB, told the newspaper. "Those two areas constitute 60 percent of the occupied hotel rooms in Memphis. Meetings and conventions are about 15 percent."
To read the
full article, visit the
Memphis Business Journal. To learn more about the city of Memphis and its opportunities for meeting planners, visit the
Memphis profile at the
Cvent Destination Guide.
Now more than ever, meeting planners are on the lookout for ways to increase attendee registration. With a few simple but effective changes in your attendee management strategy, you'll have event registration numbers up in no time.
• Don't spam. Utilizing email campaigns for your event marketing can get a response rate of five percent to 15 percent, compared to the one percent to two percent response rate of paper campaigns. Yet no email campaign has a chance of success if it doesn't even get through to your event invitee's inbox.
Carefully consider your email invitation's subject line and content so as to avoid getting stuck in a spam filter. Online registration software such as Cvent boasts an email content analyzer feature that scores your email deliverability and risk of getting caught in filters.
• Take advantage of free marketing. Event planning software can do wonders when it comes to event promotion. But don't forget the many free avenues to garner publicity, like social networking sites, free press release engines and more.
• Go online. The Internet is the go-to place for information these days. Don't be left out! Create an attractive, professional event website to offer invitees online registration and event details, and to keep attendees up-to-date on the latest agenda.
• Bundle prices. Offering bundled fees for multiple event registrations encourages organizations to sign up several attendees. Attendees will be hesitant of registering more than one attendee at full price. By offering a volume discount, you'll entice organizations to sign up two, three, four or more attendees.
• Brand your event. From a color scheme to a catchy slogan, your event should be branded with the key "take-away" for your attendees. Make sure your attendees know the benefit of coming your event, and shout it from the rooftops on your email invitation, event website, follow-up survey and more.
An event budget can be a challenge for a single meeting planner working at a small organization. For multiple planners working within a large company, the challenge becomes even more daunting.
Those involved in the meeting planning process at big organizations often have little to no idea how other colleagues are planning meetings. The process for finding venues, creating and sending Request for Proposals (RFPs), etc., varies greatly.
Because of this lack of centralized processes and procedures, planners are missing out on cost-saving negotiations and special pricing deals. You may have even heard stories about groups from the same company that book the same event venue at different rates due to a lack of communication within the organization.
Don't let this happen to you! Especially as meeting budgeting becomes tighter and tighter in 2009, a consolidated program for site selection and RFP management is critical. Such strategic sourcing allows you to make the most of preferred supplier agreements, leverage past rate history and keep contracts and agreements consistent.
Event planning software such as Cvent can help streamline your planning process. Products such as the Cvent Supplier Network keep track of past rate history, preferred suppliers and more, while its Strategic Meetings Management solution brings together meeting planners and travel and procurement departments to tighten spend and increase visibility across the board.
When it comes to cutting your food and beverage costs, it makes sense that less means more. Serving fewer courses is a surefire way to eliminate unnecessary expenses. But equally important to the amount you serve is knowing exactly what you'll serve.
You may be accustomed to offering attendees a variety of menu options in order to ensure that everyone's needs are met. However, the drawback to offering several selections is that you'll be paying more to have a restaurant or caterer stock up on these items.
Instead, work with your caterer or venue ahead of time to establish a set menu. By tightening your menu offerings you can save up to $10 per person.
Want to condense your menu but worried about excluding certain attendees? With comprehensive event planning software such as Cvent, you can ask your meeting attendees if they have any special meal requests or dietary requirements during online registration. Factor these needs in as you plan your menu, so that each attendee can enjoy their meal and you can enjoy the budget savings.
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