Crisis Management: Justifying Face-to-face

Changing the outside perception of the value of face-to-face meetings has not been an easy feat for industry organizations in recent months, given the onslaught of negative publicity by the media, but, slowly and surely, with a coalition at work to address the negativity, progress is being made.

Associations such as Meeting Planners Intl., the U.S. Travel Assn., the Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions and Events, the Professional Convention Management Assn., the American Society of Assn. Executives & The Center for Assn. Leadership, the Convention Industry Council and others, launched an agreement at PCMA’s Annual Meeting in January to come together to combat issues affecting the vitality of the meetings industry.

So far, they have conducted research, created Web sites and started initiatives for their members, the public, the media and legislators.

Jeff Busch, MPI’s vice president of strategic communications, said MPI has gotten messages out through its Meeting Industry Crisis Center Web site (www.meetingindustrycrisiscenter.org), created to convey consistent information and news about the importance of the industry and actions that industry members are able to take to help it remain strong.

In addition, MPI has rolled out an initiative called MPI Cares, which provides support to members, chapters and the industry at large with tips and calls to action.

The initiative provides members with an extended unemployment assistance program, which allows them to get a six-month extension on their membership fee if they’re struggling financially; a job bank, which allows them to post and access resumes for free; a flex program, which allows them to pay their dues during a 12-month period of time; and a pre-registration rate for all registrants for MPI’s World Education Congress, July 11-14 at the Calvin L. Rampton Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.

“(These efforts) are all under the same umbrella of helping our industry survive,” Busch said. “We’re focused on our member programs, and, hopefully, non-members will see the value in that and potentially join the association to get those additional benefits. Our crisis center is sort of a landing point for our industry for people looking for information on the Troubled Asset Relief Program or career resources or how they can get involved, how they can talk back to their senators and make sure that they’re voting correctly on the right bills and all that.”

He added, “That’s how we’re all banding together to get through this.”

IAEE President Steven Hacker said the associations that have gotten together to launch efforts like these, in the same vein of thinking, have done so with a lot of help from the U.S. Travel Assn., which has “the biggest budget in the neighborhood and an internal staff of researchers and lobbyists and public relations people.”

He added, “We realize that this is a long-term issue, and there are going to be resources that we want to develop to make our case, there are relationships we want to broaden – it’s all part of the advocacy program.”

Hacker said one of many efforts underway that associations, such as IAEE and the USTA, have partnered together for include strategic planning for the USTA’s Travel Leadership Summit, which will take place Sept. 16-17 at the Hyatt Regency Washington in Washington, D.C.

“It’s basically an opportunity for IAEE to rally members to come with me and others to Washington, D.C., to meet with their congressional representative and senators to impress upon them the importance to the country of the exhibition and events industry,” he added. “That’s a first-time addition to our advocacy program.”

IAEE’s message to people also is to become engaged.

“The attitude has to be that this is an opportunity for me to exercise one of my most important rights and that is to express my opinion to my elective representatives in Washington. One way or the other, I have to do this, whether it’s telephone calls, e-mail messages or visit them in September to make our case,” Hacker said.

Geoff Freeman, senior vice president of public affairs at USTA, said the most important message that USTA is able to convey to people is that they should speak up and join the campaign, in any way they can.

The USTA launched an initiative, Meetings Mean Business, with an accompanying Web site (www.meetingsmeanbusiness.com), where negative rhetoric about meetings, events and incentive travel is counteracted. In addition, the association has provided its members with hard data they can take to their customers to show the ROI and value that meetings provide.

“We encourage our members to arm themselves with the resources and to make good use of the toolkits and information that is available,” Freeman said.

He added in this economic and political climate, meetings professionals must connect the dots for their customers between their meeting, event or incentive and the value it will bring to their organization – whether that is relationship building, training, new business development, employee engagement or increasing productivity.

When it comes to the bare minimum of what the associations as a collective ought to be doing, Deborah Sexton, president and CEO of PCMA, said there are two main tasks at hand.

The associations, she added, should provide a consistent message about the value of meetings both within the industry and to the public – including to legislators and the government – and they should do something never done before: Get research that demonstrates the economic value of meetings and share it.