The entire business world has been turned upside down and it is consequently time to look at a lot of old ideas and question them. One misconception that many people have is that cruises are only for personal pleasure. Au contraire mon frère, cruise meetings are certainly in style these days. Consider the following reasons:
When companies choose a hotel or resort located in an urban area for their incentive travel, there are a variety of places for travel participants to dine, shop, and be entertained. However, the logistics of getting everyone to the locations they desire to be can be quite hectic and expensive. Travel participants may not take full advantage of the incentive travel simple because traveling between locations is simply too perplexing. When companies choose an incentive cruise for their employees, these problems can be avoided. Because shopping, dining, and entertainment is all located on the ship, many of the logistical nightmares associated with land venues can be circumvented.
On board a ship charter, there a number of dining, shopping, and entertainment options. From gourmet to buffet, participants can enjoy a variety of delicious cuisines. Cruise ships even offer pizza on a 24/7 basis. In addition to numerous types of palatable fare, a ship charter offers exceptional shopping adventures. Items found on most cruise ships include things such as clothing and apparel, jewelery and watches, perfumes, and even candy. If cruise event participants think that dining and shopping opportunities are infinite, they will be equally impressed with the number of entertainment options available on-board the ship charter.
Is it becoming more difficult to come up with new, exciting meeting venues, unique excursions and entertainment options or enticing destinations? If so, it might be time to take advantage of an untapped resource that just might have been right under your nose all along. As a meeting planner or corporate event planner, you have a built-in focus group just waiting to be tapped for suggestions.
If you work as a meeting planner for a particular company, your colleagues are the perfect group of people to provide suggestions regarding possible meeting venues, what type of entertainment they would like at the next corporate event and which destinations would be most appealing for incentive travel programs. If you are an independent planner, you can still take advantage of participant input by tapping the folks that attend the events you plan.
The folks who attend your meetings and events are exactly who you would want to speak to anyways, since this is the group of people to which you are providing a service and trying to impress. Most meeting and event attendees will be more than happy to participate in making future events more interesting or fun, and they will likely be delighted that they were asked their opinion on the matter.
Create a simple survey to disseminate around the office or at your next event, asking easy questions about venues, entertainment, excursions and destinations that they would find interesting. Giving predetermined options is a good way to avoid having everyone suggest Monaco when your budget would be more fitting for Miami, but even if you provide options from which they should choose, be sure to also leave some space dedicated to their suggestions. You might be surprised with how many great options they come up with that you may have never even considered.
While we would all like to believe that if you plan it they will come, that is not always the case with corporate events and meetings. Employees and executives have so many meetings and events to attend in any given week that it can sometimes take a little extra effort to ensure that they will show up at yours. Fortunately, there are several simple ways to increase the appeal of your corporate events and business meetings, which will increase attendance and show your client or boss that you know what it takes to deliver the results they need.
Here are five tried and true ways to increase attendance at corporate meetings and events:
1. Invite an enticing guest speaker. Whether it is a trendy guru or a respected leader in your field, adding an enticing guest speaker to the line-up will significantly enhance your event’s appeal. 2. Choose an appealing venue. Folks grow tired of going to the same venue for meetings and events repeatedly. Switch things up by opting for a museum, theme park or cruise ship to increase interest. 3. Serve alcohol. While you might not want to serve alcohol during the annual stakeholders’ meeting, you can certainly arrange for a cocktail social afterwards. Alcohol always seems to increase the appeal of any event. 4. Arrange exciting entertainment options. People love to be entertained, which makes this an easy way to get folks interested in attending your event. 5. Stay in touch prior to the event and ask for confirmations. Send out regular reminders and updates as the date approaches to keep your invitees interested and involved. And, do not be afraid to ask them to confirm their attendance prior to the event.
The general public has become much more interested in where companies large and small hold their meetings and events. Whether it is a local retailer or a major corporation, the very public follies of some well-known companies have increased public scrutiny when it comes to the money spent on events and travel, as well as the destinations chosen for corporate meetings and events. Cities known for extravagance and gambling – such as Las Vegas – are no longer an easy choice, even though these cities offer stellar meeting facilities, an array of dining and entertainment options, and well-priced accommodations and transportation.
Many companies continue to hold corporate meetings and events in cities seen as at least a little sinful, but they do so knowing that they will likely receive negative feedback from at least some of their stakeholders. Aside from concerns about public perception, holding meetings at hotels and resorts that have casinos is a great option that offers many benefits. Most of these venues have a variety of restaurants onsite, offer built-in entertainment options, provide great group accommodation discounts and have well-equipped meeting spaces. However, there is still the problem of public perception that must be considered.
Corporate meeting planners know that their participants tend to love casinos and all that comes along with this type of venue. Many of these planners have found an option that provides luxurious accommodations, cuisine for every palate, nightly entertainment, great group rates and the fun of onsite gaming without the negative perception that comes with casino hotels. The answer is a simple one: cruise ships. While most cruise ships have casinos, they have managed to avoid the negative reputation held by venues in Atlantic City, Las Vegas and other gaming towns.
Because cruise ships with casinos are not perceived the same as land-based venues with casinos, they are the perfect option for corporate meeting planners with clients concerned about public perception.
The Columbia Winery label is easy to recognize from seeing it in nearly every retailer that sells wine and listed on most restaurant’s wine lists. You can use this widespread recognition to your advantage by planning your next corporate event or business meeting in the winery’s gorgeous Victorian mansion, which is surrounded by a lovely English garden. The winery is located in just a short drive from Seattle in the Woodinville Wine Country and is within minutes of upscale shopping, dining and entertainment options. The 3,744-square-foot event space can accommodate up to 225 people as is or can be divided into two rooms, each of which can accommodate up to 90 guests.
To make the planning process simple, the winery offers an exceptional in-house catering service, which provides delicious cuisine complemented by Columbia Winery wines. The winery also boasts state-of-the-art technology and 140 parking spaces for your attendees to ensure a successful event. A complimentary wine tasting at the winery’s tasting bar can be incorporated into your event planning or, for a more personalized experience, you can also treat your participants to a private wine tasting hosted by an official Columbia Winery educator.
The Columbia Winery is also ideal for private events if you happen to have a client looking for an elegant venue for a wedding reception or anniversary celebration.
To begin planning your next corporate meeting or event at the Columbia Winery, visit the website at www.columbiawinery.com or call 1-800-488-2347.
Whether you are planning a day-long corporate event or an event that takes place over a number of days, you will more than likely be asked to schedule some sort of entertainment into the itinerary. In the case of multi-day events, you will need to consider activities and entertainment options for several different time slots, since naturally there will be downtime between meetings or at the end of the day. While scheduling organized outings, entertainers, social functions or other entertainment options will certainly be necessary, you may want to consider interspersing planned activities and free time during periods of downtime throughout your event.
There are a number of advantages associated with designating certain days or evenings as free time to allow the attendees to plan their own activities. The most obvious and significant advantage is the money that will be saved, followed closely by the fact that allowing for free time means fewer events for you to plan, which makes your job easier. Experiencing significant cost savings and having less planning to do is reason enough to schedule in free time; however, there are also additional benefits of opting for self-styled entertainment options.
Scheduling in free time is sure to please attendees who would rather explore the city, go out for a drink or retreat to their rooms after a long day of meetings. It also allows you to avoid risking folks not showing up due to lack of appeal or simply being too tired after the day’s activities.
Finding fun, interesting entertainment options is often the most enjoyable part of planning corporate events; however, once you have exhausted your list of local entertainers and spent the majority of your entertainment budget on one or two well-known acts, it can sometimes be a challenge to come up with additional entertainment options that will appeal to your attendees. Most people enjoy comedy acts and it is always a plus if you can provide an evening of relaxation and laughter to your participants, making booking a comedian an enticing option.
The thing about booking a comedy act is that it can go really well, or very wrong – and the outcome can directly affect your reputation. If it goes well, people will be talking about your event long after it concludes and attendees will remember that you provided a lighthearted evening of entertainment that was thoroughly enjoyable. If it goes wrong, they will also be talking about it – and you – long after the event is over, but the things they will be saying will not be nearly as flattering.
You can avoid a not-so-comedic disaster by taking the time to thoroughly vet potential comedians before booking them for your event. To do this, you can look for reviews online, inquire about how many corporate events they have done and either attend one of their shows, or request a DVD of their show if they are not local.
There are two driving forces behind the push for stay-cations: the current economic crisis and the green movement. As individuals and families are feeling the pressure of financial hardships and increasing numbers of people are committing to lowering the impact their lifestyles have on the environment, the world of vacations and travel is changing. More and more people are opting for cost-effective day excursions or nearby travel destinations that require less transportation and inflict less damage on the environment, while still being filled with fun activities and opportunities to make lasting memories. This new form of vacations is being called stay-cations by some, and companies are beginning to jump on the bandwagon to apply this idea to their incentive travel programs and corporate events.
The benefits for companies that opt for incentive travel destinations and corporate event locations that are nearby include significant cost savings, particularly in regards to transportation costs, and a positive public image that shows a commitment to limiting your company’s carbon footprint. Both of these can be very enticing and are often enough to convince a company to bypass exotic locations and opt for staying close to home. This can certainly help a planner keep things under budget, but it also puts additional pressure on the incentive travel or event planner to come up with an enticing nearby destination and appealing entertainment options that will please participants who may be accustomed to boarding a plane and heading to an exotic locale.
Cruises have always had an air of luxury of extravagance, dating back to when the first cruise lines began to offer elegant vacation options, rather than simply providing seafaring voyages for transportation purposes. While most people still consider a cruise a luxury experience, present day cruises are actually quite cost-effective and convenient for incentive travel packages, meetings at sea, conferences and trade shows, and other corporate events.
Aside from the cost savings and easy of planning that cruises provide, here are ten additional advantages of choosing a cruise for your next event or travel award:
1. Cruises offer personalized, attentive service, which enhances participants’ experience. 2. Cruises offer inclusive packages that assist planners in sticking to the defined travel budget. 3. Cruises provide a fulfilling, exciting travel experience for employees at a variety of income levels. 4. This exciting travel option is highly motivating for staff and encourages increased performance. 5. The self-contained environment makes event planning easy and convenient. 6. Planners can offer their participants multiple destinations with no additional effort. 7. Sharing an exciting travel experience is ideal for teambuilding. 8. Cruises offer all of the luxuries of resort hotels with the added value of foreign destinations. 9. Entertainment options abound, providing participants with plenty of activity options that the planner does not have to organize. 10. A contained environment ensures that more attendees will show up to onboard meetings and events.
