Can fluctuating foreign exchange rates affect international meeting budgets? Should I pay foreign suppliers in local currency or U.S. dollars? Are forward contracts a good tool for guaranteeing future exchange rates? Where can I get information...

CEOS HAVE TROUBLE COMMUNICATING THEIR VISION: MEETINGS CAN HELP While company presidents always have a vision for their companies, they don't always effectively communicate it to employees, according to the Hagburg Consulting Group of Foster City...

Meet in an ultra-modern conference room with a view of Big Ben, host a reception in a Parisian palace, gather the Continent's top guns in technology in Frankfurt or its economic experts in Brussels. A meeting in Europe can position your...

It's not a trend anymore; it's an established fact. Women are playing golf for its business and networking benefits, realizing what their male colleagues have long known--that spending four hours on the golf course is an unparalleled way to build...

There's so much new AV technology coming into the market that sometimes the advancing technology itself seems to be the industry's driving force. New products seem to come out every day that are brighter, lighter, less distorted, faster, and...

Back in 1916, when the folks from Goodyear Tire built a small retreat near the company's Arizona cotton fields, this stretch of mountain-ringed valley outside of Phoenix was dominated by giant Saguaro cactuses and howling coyotes. After 1929, when...

THE WORD FROM METCON: BECOME "E-CENTRIC" "The Internet is painfully slow," acknowledged Arthur G. Esch, chief scientist, Professional Convention Management Association and chairman, Executive Services, Ltd. in Leonardtown, Md. But the "world wide...

The inaugural Krisam Resorts Insurance Advisory Board brought together a small group of meeting planners and hoteliers at the end of May for a frank discussion of planning and negotiation issues. "Our business is relationships," says Lil Hanson...

High-Tech Site Inspections A recent meeting in San Jose, Calif., demonstrated to me how much the high-tech demands of meetings have evolved. More than half of my group had notebook computers, and various Internet requests. At a first-class...

Daniel Oldenbury remembers the first time he heard about the Millennium bug. It was last March, and he was staring out his office window at two feet of snow, suddenly feeling a little numb. Until then, the marketing manager for Wilift Truck...