 One attendee to the MEA NSW Awards night held at The Four Seasons sent us a thumbs up to the organisers, producer, venue and sponsors for superb decor, theming, food and wine at the event.
 But they weren’t entirely happy. They suggested a thumbs down to the MC and to the category presenters who ignored the dress code and wore open necked shirts with business suits. “What a shame they couldn’t match the tone and image which the organisers had so carefully created.”
An Adelaide based convention services manager informs mice.net that she was flying to Dubai in March as a hosted buyer for the new GIBTM (Gulf Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings) trade exhibition in Abu Dhabi courtesy of Emirates. Etihad Airways is the official airline of GIBTM but as they have not commenced their new Sydney service Emirates decided to fly this individual and others to the event at no charge.
It was a less than perfect way to build relations with the meetings and events industry. At the media conference to announce the launch of Tourism Australia’s $2.6 million campaign for the corporate meetings sector, two chief executives of convention bureaus, the CEO of a peak industry body and one of Australia’s top PCOs was asked to leave after taking their seats as the event as deemed “media only”.
A few of we event managers have been having a moan about the recent attitude hotels are taking to event business that does not involve an accommodation block.
It appears the hotels are focused clearly on revenue (we don’t deny them a healthy living, we’re just a bit taken aback by this new attitude). During some recent venue searches for a number of different clients we’ve been told politely that the hotels aren’t able to take our bookings if they don’t have an accommodation block attached to them. They will only consider them if the booking is less than six months out. Not happy Jan! We’re trying desperately to encourage our clients to book further ahead for all our sakes, and we run up against a brick wall with hotel venues.
In short, they’re holding out for ‘bigger’ pieces of business – we think it’s pretty ordinary and not particularly client focused. There’s no consideration for established relationships – either between us as event management companies, or to our clients who may have their own existing relationships.
In one of our situations, we have a client who holds a roadshow around Australia every six months. We take out considerable meeting space but not a lot of accommodation rooms – most participants are local. No amount of begging has got us anywhere with the hotels – and these are venues that the client prefers.
I guess this is great news for the ‘venue with a difference’ who seem only too happy to help us out! We’ll be taking a heap more business to them.
- Suzanne Hart, Director - Event Planners Australia
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