Smart Meetings

March Madness is in full force and basketball fans all over the country can focus on nothing else. It is the sole force that grabs their attention during this month of college matchups. You have all heard your coworkers shout “yes” from their cubicle in an otherwise quiet office while “working,” but really watching their college team dribble to victory.

While you can’t get these basketball junkies away from the TV screen, Omni Hotels & Resorts has found another way to get their attention with new technology. Throughout the month of March the hotel chain launched March Meetings Madness, which includes a giveaway of an iPad for every meeting contracted by March 31, 2010 and consumed by December 31, 2011. This soon-to-be released technology game-changer from Apple has had everyone talking (and signing up to be put on a waitlist for the presumably awesome new device.)

Meetings that qualify include:

• Group bookings with a minimum of $20,000 in rooms revenue
• Social catering bookings with a minimum of $20,000 in food and beverage revenue
• In lieu of a free gift, Omni can make a $500 donation in your name to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund or a charity of your choice.

One lucky winner will score the slam-dunk prize of a trip to the NCAA Championship on April 5th in Indianapolis complete with two roundtrip tickets on American Airlines, two nights at the Omni Severin Hotel in Indianapolis and two game tickets to the NCAA Basketball.

Are you paying attention now? Well the ball is in your court folks, but if I were you, I wouldn’t pass up this opportunity because some other lucky planner is going to steal this deal, putting you out on the proverbial bench.

There’s nothing like a triumphant return home with banners unfurled and your colleagues (or subjects) applauding your chariot as you come in down the avenue. Napoleon and Caesar knew the feeling and the Smart Meetings crew is fresh off a trip to the town that celebrates his palace and have returned victorious.

The Encore at Wynn hosted The Smart Meeting for three days and the event was phenomenal. From the first night keynote, through the one-on-one appointments to the final speaker on Tuesday afternoon–everything was off the map (which is an accurate phrase I used earlier this week in a Facebook update from Las Vegas).

Educational sessions combined with scheduled meetings between hoteliers and meeting planners would have been a great meeting. But that’s just substance. We had to add the style. Reception-style dinners in fantastic spaces, formal sit-down lunches, awards ceremonies, helicopter rides, Le Rêve (which is possibly the coolest show of all time) and the service and amenities provided by Encore made this edition of The Smart Meeting tremendous and positively unforgettable.

We’ll have a more complete write-up in our May issue, along with photos and announcements of our prize winners. And be sure to check our Facebook page for early previews of our photos and goings-on.

The latest version of the Hotel Price Index was recently released by hotels.com, and Las Vegas came out on top (or bottom, as far as average room rates go). The index measured the average hotel room rates for 2009 in countries and cities across the world, as well as comparing cities and states in the U.S. Those figures where also contrasted against the room rates for 2008.

Of the 77 worldwide cities listed with the header: “Average hotel prices for the first six months of 2009, compared to the same period in 2008,” Las Vegas came in dead last with an average room rate of $85/night, down 18% from 2008 when the rate was $103. By comparison, New York was No. 8 on the list with a rate of $199 for the 2009 period, down 24%, while the San Francisco Bay Area came in at No. 61 with a rate of $127, down 17% from the year before.

The report doesn’t specify the level of hotels that were included in the index, but one can only assume the properties are hotels listed on hotels.com. The website casts a pretty wide net, which includes Best Westerns and Red Roof Inns along with all Marriotts and Hiltons across their brands. This will obviously skew the results for destinations that either lack budget hotels, like some resort towns, or those that have a full range of properties. Regardless, with the massive room inventory in Vegas, simple supply and demand dictates that prices will fall, and they obviously have. So I say screw the “boondoggle” connotations that come with a meeting in Vegas, and get a great deal while the gettin’s still good.

I am flying to Los Angeles tonight to check out some new properties in the Los Angeles area and attend MPISCC at L.A. Live. Once I am at SFO and have boarded my flight, I will be faced with the question aboard my flight, “what would you like to drink?” The stewardess will promptly bring me my selected beverage with a napkin and some sort of packaged snack. Once I have consumed my one-gulp-sized beverage, what happens to that little plastic cup?

Well, the flight attendants come and pick them up, of course. They walk around taking all of your trash and placing into one receptacle. Plastic cups go in with packaging, food waste, discarded newspapers and more—there seems to be no method to the madness. A lot of what is disposed of on airplanes, and in relation to air, travel appears to be recyclable.



Well my suspicions are correct. According to Green America, Airline passengers create some 881 million pounds of waste per year (half of it created in flight) and the majority of it is not recycled. In fact, 75% of it can be recycled and currently 20% is in fact recycled.

So which airlines are recycling and which recycling programs are up in the air? A new report by  ResponsibleShopper.org, a division of Green America, “What Goes Up Must Go Down: The Sorry State of Recycling in the Airline Industry” aims to answer my question. They report that Delta, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic and Southwest top ranked in recycling programs, and by top ranked, I mean these airlines has received grades that ranged from B- to C—those grades wouldn’t cut it for my parents, they shouldn’t cut it for today’s travelers. Trailing the list, or today’s recycling flunkies, are United and US Airways—can we put them on academic probation for airlines?

So now that you know the grades, what can you do? Help raise these marks and their ROB (recycling on board) by writing a letter to airport executives. To take action, click here.

Tonight, when I fly I am going to ask what they do with that trash—I can’t wait to hear the response. But I am flying Virgin America, so it may actually be recycled.

Yesterday our staff set out to the Acqua Hotel just north of our office in Mill Valley, Calif. You feel tranquil as soon as you walk in with the hotel's soothing colors and a clean, modern design featuring unique accents such as grass “growing” near the waterfalls and fireplaces in the lobby. The 49-room boutique Joie de Vivre property was the perfect place to unplug and get down to business.



The meeting room we occupied for the day had awesome views of the water (as you can see from the picture I snapped above). The service was attentive, yet unobtrusive as their staff manned our room and quietly refreshed the food and beverage. Their F&B was great and much surpassed the typical hotel standards. We feasted on fresh fruit (think pineapple and blueberries) and pastries for breakfast, and chowed down on gourmet boxed-lunches midday.

The experience was great—the day was productive and the Acqua provided the venue for our creativity to bloom. It further proved that even we need to have an off-site meeting or two sometimes.