In a presentation at the Convention Liaison Council Forum held in New York City in November, Mickey Schaefer, president of the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA), called for every facet of the meeting, convention, incentive, and trade show industry to "buy into" creating accepted practices. The APEX (Accepted Practices for Excellent Exchange) initiative would establish accepted practices in housing, contracts, meeting profiles, terminology, requests for proposal, and event orders.
So far, the response from the industry is encouraging. Preliminary results of a feasibility study conducted by Deloitte & Touche show a consistent 80 to 82 percent of industry suppliers saying that they would support APEX by sharing information about their policies and revenue data, allowing customers to be interviewed, and piloting proposed accepted practices. Fifty percent said they would consider contributing funds to support APEX.