New oversight regulations for financial institutions that receive money from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program has the meetings industry speaking out to defend the value of conferences and events. In addition to new...

The trend in large corporations is toward “strategic meetings management,” meaning that enterprise meeting spend gets tracked and leveraged, the request-for-proposal process is managed according to company policy, and contracting is centralized to...

Global Events Partners, a partnership of destination management companies, announced it has acquired Atlanta Arrangements Inc., a DMC that has been operating in Atlanta for 40 years. Atlanta Arrangements was previously an independently owned GEP...

High anxiety concerning the future of pharmaceutical funding of continuing medical education permeated the Alliance for Continuing Medical Education annual conference, held January 28–31 in San Francisco. In numerous sessions, attendees and...

Marriott International launched a new online training program for third-party meeting planners this week called Meetings Excellence!, which earns planners certification as a “Marriott Meeting Professional.” The course is part of the Marriott Group...

With an expanded convention center, a new 1,000-room hotel, and the grand opening of a light-rail system connecting the convention center to downtown, the suburbs, and the airport, Phoenix begins a new era as a convention destination...

Pending legislation in Massachusetts that would ban gifts and giveaways at medical conventions and restrict pharmaceutical and medical device company marketing practices has caused at least one medical society to cancel a meeting in Boston and...

After months of debate over the location of Cleveland’s new convention center and medical mart, Cuyahoga County commissioners and Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., the project's private-sector developer, announced last week that they would build...

There’s a new conference taking place in Europe that promises to offer an effective platform for sharing the trends and challenges in the meetings industry. European Meetings Industry 2009 is a two-day, hosted-buyer program planned for February 16...

One of the responsibilities of a good meeting manager or corporate travel buyer is making informed buying decisions when it comes to air travel. Now a couple of airline analysts are adding a new twist to those buying calculations...