PCMA Annual 2010: The Final Day

Jan 14

maureen-pickellTrade Shows economy, meeting attendance, meeting industry, pcma, upcoming meetings industry events No Comments

Well, the PCMA 2010 Annual Meeting wrapped up with another strong day of education beginning with a Plenary Session entitled “The State of the Meetings and Travel Industry.” The theme of “cautious optimism” that has run through the conference was reiterated once again – this time with hard numbers presented by Peter Yesawich of YPartnership.

His panel included Minaz Abij of Asset Management, Thomas C. Dolan, PhD., CAE, American College of Healthcare Executives, Brian Phillips of FedEx Office, Thomas W. Storey, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts and Frits van Paasschen of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. The consensus of this distinguished group is that business meetings are coming back slowly.  The 2^nd quarter will see the emergence of small and mid-sized events with large meetings surfacing in the 4^th quarter.  Association business will pick up with higher attendance at annual conferences because of the pent up demand for face to face encounters.

According to Thomas Dolan, “You still need to see to sell and convince.”

It appears that 2^nd quarter will see a rush to get these meetings launched.  To help our planners manage their “time poverty,”  ConventionPlanit.com offers the RFP Valet^TM service.  Instead of  spending time researching facilities and chasing properties for timely responses, we do the work for you.  To learn more about this service, click here.

Your dedicated blogger was virtually overwhelmed by the wealth of information presented during PCMA 2010 – Convening Leaders.  I’ve attempted to share some of the highlights with you over the past 4 days, but in order to comprehend the wide scope of the education that was offered, go to www.pcma2010.org and click on Video to view the PCMA-TV News Summary.

We’ll see you at PCMA 2011 in Las Vegas!