Last minute planning is always a no-no, but sometimes it is unavoidable. Unfortunately, some bosses drop last minute meetings on their meeting planners and expect everything to be ready. Here are four tips to planning a last minute meeting without it turning into a debacle:

• Anticipate – Record the times and locations of every meeting as well as other related data. If it looks like the powers that be seem to like Friday afternoon meetings with deli snacks, then you should know what is coming without being told. To this end, keep all relevant supplies and coupons stocked, and favorite restaurants that deliver on speed-dial.
• Take imitative – You do not necessarily have to wait to be told about meetings in every case. It is usually acceptable to ask about meetings unless you have been expressly directed not to do so.
• Check schedules – Are the powers that be showing open schedules are the same time? If so, this might be a clue that a not-so-surprise-to-them meeting is getting set to be dumped into your lap at the last second. Now you have some warning!
• Have a to-go kit ready – Do meetings require certain tools or props? If so, keep all these props in a suitable to-go bag and have it ready 24/7. This will give you more time to get everyone into the meeting room and you will spend less time getting yourself prepared.

Seven Ways to Increase Event Attendance RIGHT NOW with a Fully-automated System:

1. Send email invitations in addition to snail mail.
Due to the costs and hassles of mail, increasing invitation frequency is not economical. With broadcast email you can schedule perfectly timed invitations to go out in sequence. Giving you more opportunity to attract registrants. An automated system automatically emails your registrants whenever you want it to.

2. Receive commitments quickly.
No licking envelopes or searching for stamps is required by your potential registrants when you include a direct link to your registration form from your email invitation.

3. Automatically notify people who abandon registration.
Ever wonder how many people start their registration but don't follow through? Well, with an automated system, you can not only be notified when this happens, but create an email that automatically gets sent to them when they abandon the process, recapturing 20-25% of these fence-sitters directly from the email.

4. Communicate with people who haven’t RSVP’d.
Some people need several prompts or reminders of an upcoming event before they finally register. Schedule subsequent invitations to go out automatically and on the days you select to those on your list that have not yet registered.

5. Automate confirmation emails to increase ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising.
Statistics show that you can increase your word-of-mouth registration by including a "Refer-a-Friend" link in your confirmation emails. You can even give them suggested verbiage to send on about your event right in the body of the email. Automated systems make it easy to get referrals, giving you additional registrants.

6. Decrease no-shows with reminder emails.
We have heard of event planners that see a 90% attendance rate after sending a reminder email when their previous no show rate was as high as 35%. An automatically generated reminder email is a great place to send final event details to your attendees.

7. Keep registrants informed with automatic wait list emails.
A wait list without coordination headaches is possible in a system with automated wait listing. When a spot opens up, an email is automatically sent to the next person on the waiting list. They can confirm and pay, or decline and the process will repeat – automatically – effortlessly keeping your event at capacity.

With a fully-integrated online registration system, you can get an easy to use broadcast email system that will increase your sign ups by 25% or more.

Meetings have the capacity to be soul-crushing events or very lively, team-building exercises if they are properly planned. Meetings that are about creative problem solving can be broken up into two stages with a break in the middle.

The first stage is one where all ideas are accepted and negativity is simply not allowed. This promotes better idea sharing and creates a more open atmosphere that allows others to build off of ideas that may or may not be practical. The second meeting is one where negativity and even constructive criticism still need to take a back seat to the priority of choosing the most reasonable plan. Emotional investment in ideas should be distributed due to the very nature of the first meeting, and thus nobody should be championing a cause to further their own ends.

Another idea would be to give people special seats on corners when they are ‘idea’ people. The seats are honorary positions that change whenever a new idea comes up that is useful. Some meeting planners have special incentives ready for whoever spends the most time in one of these chairs, such as a covered parking spot for a period of time.

By following the aforementioned ideas and/or being a little creative, it is possible to create strong incentives without having to actually spend any money. Furthermore, productivity gains from smart meeting planning can be phenomenal and almost impossible to put a price tag on.

Incentive planning is important to building guaranteed attention and focus of any audience, and luckily there are a number of tools to help with this. Some of the tools are available in the most obvious of places, while others might be a little more subtle.

Venues – surprisingly, many venues have built-in incentives that they can offer, such as tours or gifts. This is more common in more exotic locations, and special destinations such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City. For more information, inquire with the hotel’s concierge service.

Local Concierge Services – In many cases, it is possible to find local services that offer meeting planning services at a discount. Smart meeting planners can and will consult with these for pricing whenever appropriate. Often it turns out that the local services have developed special relationships based on volume and history, and thus are able to offer better pricing.

Searching – If you do not look for it, then do not be surprised if you do not find it. The Internet is an amazingly powerful tool for looking for anything, and Google makes the entire process look simple. Simply navigate to Google’s home page (www.google.com) and type in what you are looking for. For example a search for ‘affordable tours in Tucson’ is a great way to locate an incentive.

Seasite.com – This amazing portal offers group cruise planning tools you can use to plan an incentive cruise.  With all cruise brands represented, you can source a group cruise easily with a single electronic RFP.

Planning group cruises and meetings at sea has always been a relatively simple task. This is largely due to the ease of planning that comes with all-inclusive pricing and the convenience of organizing lodging, meeting space, food and beverage, entertainment and décor in one simple process. However, Seasite.com has now made it even easier to plan corporate cruises and meetings on cruise ships with the introduction of their user-friendly planner guides.

These new cruise planning guides go well beyond the typical ship information available to travel planners and include the information that you really need to know when planning functions at sea. These easy-to-use guides include previously unpublished information, such as:

• Capacity of function rooms
• Information about outdoor function venues
• Meeting space grids
• Information about group dining options

This meeting-specific information that is critical to meeting planners and corporate travel planners has never before been made easily available, until now.

Check out Seasite.com’s cruise planning guides the next time you need to plan a meeting or event at sea, and you will see just how simple these online cruise planning tools are to use.

Follow these simple steps to easily access ship information for your next event:

1. Go to Seasite.com.
2. From the home page, click on Meeting Venues.
3. Select a ship from the A-Z ship directory.
4. When the ship details appear, click on Planner’s Guide.

It is no secret that cruise ships are ideal for hosting meetings and conferences. They offer a number of benefits, including all-inclusive pricing, significant cost savings over land-based events, built-in entertainment and stellar meeting facilities. With the recent growth in popularity of river cruises, meeting planners are now beginning to contemplate the feasibility of holding meetings on these smaller vessels that cruise the rivers of North America, South America and Europe. On one hand, river cruise meetings they offer an appealing option that provides a more intimate setting, a unique experience and that much-coveted, all-inclusive pricing, but on the other hand, can they provide the amenities and meeting space required for your event?

River barges and boats, by their nature, are much smaller vessels and are a far cry from the floating city atmosphere of oceangoing vessels. Intimate settings for meals, which are often prepared by and eaten with the captain or the captain’s spouse, limited onboard activities and services, and minimal free space are all characteristics of river cruising. Because of this, planning business meetings to take place during a river cruise will take some research and planning. If you are opting for a larger paddlewheel riverboat cruising a river in the South, you will likely find that holding onboard meetings is a viable option; however, some of the smaller river barges that cruise the rivers of Europe may not have the space available to hold a meeting for more than just a handful of people – and will almost certainly have no audio-visual equipment.

If you are determined to host your next business meeting on a boat, a full-size, oceangoing cruise ship will always be your best bet, but with a little planning and preparation, a river cruise is also possible when planning smaller meetings and events.

If you are a self-employed meeting planner, you already know that quite a bit of planning is required before you can even begin to meet with clients and provide services. Decisions must be made about which niche should be your main focus, which marketing methods will be most effective, how to build successful relationships with venues and vendors, and how you will manage your client contacts. If you work from a home office, there are also the issues of setting up a home office that is quiet and conducive to productivity, establishing a professional feel for your business that does not give away that you run it out of your home, and determining how and where you will meet with clients.

The issue of where to meet with clients is a simple one when working with larger companies that have offices or storefronts. In this case, you can simply go to them and meet with them on their premises. However, when you are working with smaller companies or are meeting with potential clients that are located elsewhere and visiting your city, meeting on their turf may not be an option.

If the client company is also conducted from a home office, then it is appropriate for you to meet in either your home or theirs, as long as you feel comfortable having clients in your home and you have a professional environment in which to conduct meetings. Options for meeting clients outside of your home include meeting at a local coffee shop or looking into office sharing programs that offer meeting space for reasonable rates.

We all know that plants assist in cleaning indoor air and are nice to look at, but can they really improve meetings in a way that is meaningful and worth the effort?

Plants can be used in both temporary and permanent meeting locations; however, using them at various venues requires meeting planners to transport the plants to different locations and to find a place to store and care for them when not in use. This is going to be too much of a hassle for most meeting planners who already have plenty to manage, but if you plan on-site meetings that are held in regularly used meeting rooms plants may be a viable option.

Aside from cleaning the air and creating a healthier environment, plants are also perfect for creating a more relaxed meeting venue and taking away some of the sterile feeling that is common among nondescript meeting spaces. Dull, drab meeting rooms with little décor and stale air drain the energy of attendees quickly and make for a very long meeting; however, by adding a few well-placed plants to the room, you can create a more welcoming environment that is more comfortable and energetic, which can lead to greater productivity. Plants are also inexpensive, which makes them a much more affordable option for livening up a room than more expensive options, such as new furnishings or artwork.

If you are planning a meeting or conference in a popular tourist destination, such as the Caribbean, South America, Australia, Hawaii, Spain or Greece, you can rest assured that you will have plenty of interested participants that will certainly attend. However, you may be concerned about how good their attendance will be once they are at the destination and have to make the tough choice between attending meetings or spending the day at the beach and shopping for souvenirs in open air markets. Your attendees are naturally going to be tempted by pristine, sandy beaches, the warmth of the sun and the draw of local villages and sites of cultural interest. Because of this, it will take a bit of planning to ensure that your attendees participate fully in your meeting or event.

One way to encourage them to attend planned functions and to ensure them that they will also have plenty of time to explore the area is to provide a schedule that clearly defines blocks of free time. This will provide them with a visual reminder that they are there to work, as well as play, and will let them know that you have planned plenty of free time for their enjoyment. You may also want to consider scheduling a free day within the first few days of the event, rather than only towards the end. If they see that they have to wait until the end of the week to hit the beach, they will be much more likely to play hooky from meetings to sneak away to the shore.

Another way to ensure attendance at important events is to plan a group cruise event.  Cruising is extremely popular with meeting attendees, and meeting planners can plan structured events at sea around the cruise itinerary.

Most meeting planners have probably already read about how companies want more value than ever before from their conferences. While this can create more work for you, there are some things you can do to work out the kinks long before they happen.

Think Replacement

If you need to help the company keep expenses at a minimum, replace these meeting parts:

* Replace the reception with a working lunch – this will let people meet and network, as well as enjoy a meal together. * Replace the open bar idea with team building exercises or mind storming training-these programs have a much better chance of improving the ROI than a bunch of drunk employees blowing off steam. * Replace entertainment with a spa wellness trip. You will have more refreshed folks ready to work. * Replace land based venues with a cruise meeting, and save as much as 40%. Cruising is all-inclusive, so planners may be surprised to know that meeting rooms, meals, A/V equipment and luxury accommodations are all included in one low price.

Think Reduction

What if the customer says, "Okay, these cost savings are great, let's get rid of the reception, evening entertainment, and and welcome reception open bar meet-and-greet! So what do we do on the last day, then?"

Get rid of it. Tell your client that not only will she not need to make the usual expenditures that don't improve ROI on the cost of the meeting, she can eliminate the last night's hotel bill as well.

By just replacing the non-ROI generating activities and events, you have already increased the value of the meeting. Your client will be grateful for that for a long time. And happy, satisfied clients translate to more meeting planning business for you in the future. So, it pays to find every way to cut out unnecessary expenses and increase meeting ROI for your clients.

Explode meeting ROI with a cruise event. Cruising offers a savings of as much as 40% of the cost of hotel venues, since a cruise is all inclusive.

An all inclusive cruise event can save you up to 40% compared to land based venues since so much is included. Meals, meeting rooms, A/V, coffee breaks, activities, entertainment and even room service are part of the all-inclusive cruise fare.