... And One More Thing

Well, our list of 10 suggestions for changing the industry — provided free of charge by the Tradeshow Week editors — seemed to hit a nerve, particularly at last week's SISO CEO Summit in Charlotte, N.C. There was agreement on some of the items and disagreement on others, which is the way it should be.

One more item that probably could have been on the list provoked quite a bit of discussion as the meeting wound down late on Tuesday morning. NBC-TV's "Today Show" Travel Editor Peter Greenberg brought up the subject of add-ons to the average hotel bill. You know, the stuff that hotels manage to put on your final bill that you never imagined they'd have the gall to actually charge you for: so-called resort fees, charges for delivering packages, Internet access?

It sparked a conversation that went beyond just the usual grousing about travel hassles to a concern over what it could mean for the tradeshow industry as a whole.

Later that afternoon I flew to Orlando to visit Coverings and the Intl. Sign Assn. Intl. Sign Expo. I checked into the Sheraton World Resort, a hotel that tens of thousands of your customers have stayed at over the years, and went downstairs to its restaurant for a late dinner.

What made this dinner different, however, was the 15-percent gratuity that was automatically added to my check, a mandatory tip. It wasn't a mistake. I had two more meals at the hotel over the next two days and each time I was told that my server would be happy to accept an additional gratuity, but I had no choice about paying the mandatory 15 percent. Remember, this wasn't a table of six we're talking about; this was me eating a meal by myself.

I know that most of the time most of us grumble about these kinds of things, accept our fates and pay the bill. But this time I had Greenberg's words ringing in my ear: "What about those add-ons?"

So, on my last day at the hotel I went to the front desk, not to complain, but to ask for an explanation.

I was told that, no, a manager was not available to speak to me and that I would "have to ask someone in the restaurant." Back there, a manager wasn't available either. The best the young hostess could do was raise one eyebrow, ask "You don't think your server deserves a tip?" then turn and walk away.

Now, obviously I think servers in restaurants deserve tips, and I distribute them as freely as anyone. I, however, prefer to be the one who decides how much of a tip is warranted.

Every one of our readers has his or her share of travel woes. There's really nothing unusual about this one — and that's the point, because every one of your customers, every one who exhibits in or attends one of your events, has them too.

As we all know, the traditional tradeshow has plenty of competition. There are other ways for sellers to communicate with buyers, and for buyers to get information about products and services. We tell ourselves nothing beats face-to-face marketing, and we're right.

But every time an attendee comes home from a show with a bad taste in his or her mouth, with a memory of how unpleasant the trip was — regardless of the reason — they're that much closer to making the decision to stay home next year.

In the grand scheme of things, that $9.95 to get on the Internet, that $2.75 bottle of water, or the mandatory 15-percent tip on a tuna sandwich isn't much, particularly if you're one of our readers who spend many, many nights away from home. You learn to deal with it.

But if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of your customers who make it to only one or two tradeshows a year, and you're so aggravated by the experience that you decide the trip really is optional, that $2.75 bottle of water might be pretty expensive after all — to you.