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Introducing:
Financial and Insurance Meetings
The Meetings Group, Primedia Business, is pleased to
announce that, beginning with the November/December 40th anniversary
issue, Insurance Conference Planner magazine will become
Financial and Insurance Meetings.
Financial and Insurance Meetings will continue providing
bimonthly, in-depth coverage of the insurance and financial services
segment of the meeting and incentive market, and it will include the
official newsletter of the ICPA in every issue.
On the Agenda, our monthly e-newsletter, will continue to give
readers of our print magazine a dose of trends, tips, and commentary. We
welcome your feedback on the contents of this issue, and/or suggestions
for how this e-newsletter can better serve your information needs. I
look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Regina Baraban
Insurance Conference Planner
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Hospitality and Travel Trends
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Ambassadors of New
Orleans
Barbara Scofidio
Destination Management companies play an important role
in the promotion of a city: They're like its ambassadors, building
business for the destination and showing off its highlights to the rest
of the world.
Two of the DMC industry's leaders, Terry Epton, DMCP, CITE, USA Hosts,
and Bonnie Boyd, CMP, Bonnie Boyd and Company, are from New Orleans and
were hit hard by Katrina. But their indefatigable spirit and love for
their city hasn't been crushed by the storm.
Epton's condominium, located near the Superdome, was looted, and when we
spoke with him he had not yet been able to return to it. But he's
already moving forward--and so, he believes, will New Orleans. Because
the French Quarter is in such good shape, as are some hotels (which are
now setting aside a portion of their rooms to house employees), he even
expects some single-hotel meeting business by the end of the year.
"Any city other than New Orleans might be worried," he said. "But drama
and controversy have always been part of New Orleans."
Epton, who is also chairman-elect of the New Orleans Convention and
Visitors Bureau, is working out of the USA Hosts office in Las Vegas for
at least 60 days. He can be reached at terryepton@gmail.com
Bonnie Boyd is just as optimistic. When we spoke to her earlier this
week, she had still not gained access to her Baronne Street offices, but
had set up a temporary office in Baton Rouge. Many of her staffers
suffered damage to their homes, and some lost everything--but, she says,
they're still eager to return to work and the city they love. "We are
still alive and kicking!" she told us.
Boyd predicts that some group travel will return after the first of the
year at the hotels that are now housing the restoration personnel (the
Sheraton, the W, the Marriott, and the Hilton). As of yesterday, she
said, hotels in the dry French Quarter and the Central Business District
were expecting power and water to be restored within days.
"Somehow, the essence the French Quarter
has been spared once again," she said. "It almost seems as if a shield
was placed over it and the Garden District. Could be those Ursulines
who have been praying away fires, malaria, yellow fever, hurricanes, and
the British since 1718 were successful once again!"
She can be reached at
bboyd@bbcdmc.com
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Report From the Field
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Happy, Happy
Hartford
By
Betsy Bair
You'd have thought the city had just won the bid for the
Olympics, that's how happy Hartford's city--and state--fathers and
mothers were on August 25 when the Marriott Hartford Downtown officially
opened its doors. Financial and insurance conference planners are
pleased as well: They now have a first-class hotel and ample meeting
space to host many of their hometown meetings and events.
Perhaps the loudest cheers at the ribbon cutting, which came from the
hotel's 200 employees, were for J.W. Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO,
Marriott International. "It's the associates" who make the experience,
said Marriott, and the reason visitors return and groups rebook. Another
reason for groups to consider Hartford: some $2 billion in public and
private monies are being invested in a revitalization of its downtown.
The hotel is adjacent to the 540,000-square-foot Connecticut
Convention Center, which opened in June. The Marriott's complement of
13,000 square feet of meeting space includes the largest hotel ballroom
in Hartford, with 8,300 square feet of space. Its guest rooms feature
the new Marriott bed--featuring softer sheets, plusher mattresses,
stylish duvets, more pillows, and a new fluffy look--which are being
rolled out at all of Marriott's full-service hotels by year-end. For
more, click
here.
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ICPA Beat
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Possible Name
Change for ICPA
By
Regina Baraban
ICPA members have a big decision to make. On September
8, they were mailed a proxy vote form on bylaws changes that, if
approved by at least two-thirds of the membership, would change the
association's name to Financial and Insurance Conference Planners.
I urge all ICPA members to carefully read the restated bylaws, which
propose several revisions in addition to the name change, and to not
delay casting their votes. The new bylaws would help the association to
move forward with its strategic growth plan.
All members and hospitality partners attending ITME are invited to a
town hall meeting from 11 a.m. to noon on September 27 to discuss the
bylaws vote and the association's strategic initiatives. Following the
meeting, please join board members and headquarters staff at The
Meetings Group booth, number 810, for further discussion. For more
information, click
here.
In other ICPA news, President John Touchette, CMP, has resigned from
John Hancock and accepted a new position at Raytheon Co., which
disqualifies him as an ICPA member. He will officially pass the ICPA
gavel to president-elect Michael Burke, CMP, Allmerica Financial, at the
association's board of director's meeting on September 26 in Chicago.
There will also be a ceremonial succession at the ICPA annual meeting at
New York's Marriott Marquis, November 6 to 10.
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Today's Burning Question
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After Katrina:
Will Our Industry Step Up?
By
Betsy Bair
In Katrina's aftermath, I believe that one of the most
important things we can do is help our industry find a unified voice.
By supporting our industry associations, we may finally get through to
Congress that the power and economic importance of meetings and
conventions is huge. If they all "get it," then we will have a chance to
recover more quickly when major disasters such as Katrina, the second
tragedy in only four years to hit our industry, take place.
The question is: How can we create that unified voice?
While we continually try to find the funding to measure the true
economic impact of meetings and conventions as a stand-alone sector
within tourism, it is nearly impossible to quantify the spending of
everyone who goes to a meeting or a convention; we just can't
differentiate them from the general tourist. Nor can we heap one more
responsibility on the Convention Industry Council. While CIC does an
incredible job of overseeing initiatives that improve our industry, and
it conducts an economic impact study, the CIC was never meant to be our
voice that speaks to the government.
But the Travel Industry Association of America is the voice of
the travel industry. Among its objectives are to pursue and influence
policies, programs, and legislation that are responsive to the needs of
the industry as a whole.
No one understands the meetings sector better than Roger Dow, formerly
of Marriott and now the president and CEO of TIA, and Jonathan Tisch,
chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, chairman of the Business Industry
Roundtable, which has become a strategic partner with TIA. The two
leaders can help us to articulate our message, and help show how our
segment of the tourism industry is important to communities like New
Orleans. I urge ICPA, and other industry associations, to find our
unified voice by supporting the TIA.
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