You don't need a college degree in meeting planning to become a meeting professional, but if it's up to Colin Rorrie Jr., PhD, CAE, president and CEO of MPI, who led the American College of Emergency Physicians for 21 years before joining MPI in...

Talk about a room with a view. From my 18th-floor balcony, I could survey an expanse of placid Pacific waters and the full sweep of Waikiki Beach, as well as the jutting brown face of Diamond Head. At the Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort, every room...

Industry veterans Shelley Harris, CMP, CMM, and Ellen Wilson, CMP, are offering a six-week TeleWorkshop on marketing and sales techniques for independent meeting executives this spring and fall...

As the lodging industry slowly emerges from its multiyear slump, some U.S. cities are more in demand than others. In fact, half of the major market cities in the U.S. have revenues per available room, or RevPAR, ratios that are either lagging the...

PLANNERS LOOKING for new incentive destinations in the United States should take a close look at Farmington Valley, a cluster of seven charming small towns just west of Hartford, Conn...

ProcurePoint Travel Solutions, a company focused on online sourcing and procurement of hotel space for corporate meetings and transient travel, has closed. Ed Sarraille, president and CEO of the Sausalito, Calif.-based company, confirmed that...

WHEN IT COMES TO TERRORIST THREATS, many planners and vendors maintain what Joan L. Eisenstodt calls a “see no evil” attitude. “If we don't talk about terrorism [or other factors that could disrupt our meetings], we think, ‘It won't happen again,’...

The insurance and financial services industry is so skittish from bad press fallout that some corporate communications departments have banned employees from talking on the record to reporters. It is a particularly challenging situation for the...

In January, I attended a meeting in Las Vegas and was surprised by the elevated level of security. McCarran International Airport was buzzing with activity, our taxi was searched at the entrance to one of the Strip's major resorts, and everyone...

Noncompliance with the meeting-related regulations of the National Association of Securities Dealers could land insurance companies on the hot seat. That was the word at the Northeast chapter meeting of the Insurance Conference Planners...