Meeting Planning Takes Root There's not enough space here to cover all of the significant dates and events in the industry's history. But jumping ahead several millennia from ancient times, we find modern meeting planning taking root in the United States.

According to www.schonwalder.org, the City Hotel, which opened in 1794 in New York City, was the first purpose-built hotel in America. Offering 73 guest rooms and meeting rooms, it was considered large at the time, and soon became the social center of the booming city of 30,000. The site goes on to say that Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia followed suit by opening similar establishments, which quickly became fashionable meeting places.

Less than a century later, Chicago laid the groundwork for the exhibitions industry in the Midwest. In his brief history of the industry (posted on the MiForum listserv, www.mimegasite.com), William R. Host, CMP, associate professor, Manfred Steinfeld School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Roosevelt University, writes, "in the 1870s, Chicago built the Interstate Industrial Exposition Building. Said to be the nation's first permanent exhibit hall, it celebrated Chicago's resurrection after the fire of 1871 and served as convention center, exhibition hall, and opera house until the 1890s, when it was replaced with the Art Institute, then also used for meetings during the World's Columbian Exposition."

Expo magazine pinpoints 1885 as the birth of present-day CVBs, "when journalist Milton Carmichael suggests in The Detroit Journal that local businessmen band together to promote the city as a convention destination, as well as represent the city and its many hotels to bid for business. Two weeks later, what will become the Detroit Convention and Businessmen's League forms to do just that. Carmichael heads the group, which will later evolve into the Detroit Metro CVB."

Some 30 years later, in 1914, the International Association of Convention & Visitor Bureaus (IACVB) - now called Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) - was formed. Next came the creation in 1920 of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE).

The Roots Began to Sprout
In 1925, P.G.B. Morriss wrote How to Plan a Convention, published by Drake Publishing (as in the famous Chicago hotel). What Morriss observed about the industry more than 80 years ago is surprisingly relevant today:

The purpose of every convention is to accomplish something, hence the first step taken when planning any particular convention is the determining of the specific things which are to be accomplished. Let us group the possible purposes under five major heads:

1. the imparting or exchange of business information
2. the establishment and clarification of matters of policy
3. personal acquaintanceship within an organization
4. effecting a national stimulus
5. the contribution of new ideas for the future betterment of an industry.

Morriss also wrote that planning must "produce a positive result on the majority of those present. For that reason conventions are far more dependent upon required preliminary planning than upon their actual fulfillment, consequently a convention is successful in direct proportion to the leadership employed and to the careful and detailed planning and preparation made under the leadership mentioned, weeks and months before the first open meeting is called to order."

He missed no logistical detail and included in his book lists of tasks - including flag positioning and placement of banquet flowers. He also claimed it is the duty of the "convention executive" to arrange for cigars, telegrams, lanterns, and songbooks (for closing banquet sing-alongs).

Morriss covered site selection, noting, "It might be said that shrewd hotel selection calls for considerable experience. Hotels should never be judged solely by one or two features, such as size of convention hall or smallness of minimum rates. Those chosen should be willing to insure the committee against any raise in rates during or just prior to the convention. In this connection the writer has seen instances where an apparently reputable hotel with an advertised minimum room rate of $2.00 put the minimum rate per room up to $15.00 by adding one cot and styling it 'Accommodations for three persons,' reducing the rates to normal as soon as the convention was over."

Though there could be debate in our industry on his comment that "there should be some one person responsible for the convention success, and he should be given absolute freedom in planning and managing the convention," as an industry we would agree with Morriss's contention that "convention management is no longer merely a part of the duties of an association secretary. It has become recognized as a very definite profession, one requiring both natural skill and ability acquired by experience."

A Tree Grows
In 1949, the Convention Liaison Council - later to be known as the Convention Industry Council (CIC) - was founded by four organizations to "facilitate the exchange of information within the meetings, conventions and exhibitions industry" (www.conventionindustry.org). The CIC now has 33 member organizations and is the governing body of the Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designation, which was created in 1985.

Successful Meetings magazine was launched in 1953, followed by the founding of PCMA in 1956 and Meeting Professionals International (MPI) in 1972.

Another industry milestone took place in the mid-1960s, Host points out, when the Conrad Hilton Hotel created the position of convention services manager. "Before," Host writes, "events were handled on site by the maitre d'hotel or banquet captain."

Through the years, the industry moved from town-hall buildings and fairgrounds to stadiums, exhibit halls, and convention centers. During the 1950s and '60s, 100,000 square feet of exhibit space was considered big. Today, venues in excess of one million square feet aren't uncommon.

If facts and figures, dates and data make the industry seem too dry, anecdotal stories can bring it to life.

"If you count volunteer activities and paid jobs, [I have been in the industry] more than 50 years," said Joan Eisenstodt, chief strategist at Eisenstodt Associates, LCC. She recalled: "My first 'gig' was planning street fairs to raise money for polio - as a five- or six-year-old." She made handwritten posters on trees to market the fairs, organized marble-shooting tournaments and bobbing for plastic ducks as entertainment, sold tickets to raise money, and even had a "celebrity" in the form of her next-door neighbor, "who had contracted polio when we all were in the test vaccinations in kindergarten."

Industry veteran Sara Torrence, CMP, remembers when hotel contracts were one-page agreements, many of which "were written on the back of cocktail napkins or sealed with a handshake," she said. "Now, contracts are lengthy tomes that go on for pages and pages, and are negotiated word for word. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Everything should be in writing. But I think it can sometimes create a contentious environment."

Torrence, president of Sara Torrence & Associates, got her start in the industry by filling in at registration tables for conferences run by her office at the National Bureau of Standards. "I was a writer/editor, responsible for the employee newsletter," she said. "However, everyone in the division pitched in when a conference was held."

For Jim Fausel, owner of Global Conference Associates, a faux pas made during his "first job planning a dinner for Alcoholics Anonymous" taught him a valuable lesson. "I couldn't understand why they didn't like my choice of desserts: crème de menthe parfait," Fausel said. "I figured I better join some associations that provided education."

Changes in technology, even in the last 20 years, have significantly changed the face of the industry. We've seen the growth - if not the outright explosion - of online registration, electronic RFPs, and Internet marketing of events, which, Torrence said, have "enabled people to learn 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

Tyra W. Hilliard, Esq., CMP, an industry insider of more than 20 years, agrees. "Technology has changed not only how we plan meetings (in terms of online RFPs, 360-degree online tours of facilities, and online registration)," Hilliard said, "but also has changed the nature of our meetings themselves, such as better AV, and Web conferences instead of face-to-face meetings."

Other major changes the industry has undergone in recent history include the growth of the green movement, an emphasis on diversity, education, and training - and the evolution of the meeting planner profession itself.

"Our jobs have become much more about strategy," Biback said. "The logistics are all still there, but it has become more complex. In addition to implementing, we now have to be generalists and specialists at the same time. It's much more entrepreneurial. We have to be much more in tune to our organization's business plan and strategic goals."

About to Blossom?
It's only been recently that the industry has begun to get its arms around its economic impact.

Hotels have become much more bottom-line-oriented. It used to be that most hotels were corporate-owned or managed for a single owner. Profit was always the purpose, but there was a sense that the customer came first. "Today, hotels are part of an investment portfolio," Torrence said. "The owners are further and further away from the customers. The management company and hotel company must make money for the investors. So, revenue management has become more of a factor in all dealings between planners and hoteliers."

And while the industry itself may recognize the many ways it benefits the economy, that message has not been driven home to the outside world. "Travel and tourism," according to DMAI (www.destinationmarketing.org), "enhances the quality of life for a local community by providing jobs, bringing in tax dollars for improvement of services and infrastructure, and attracting facilities like restaurants, shops, festivals, and cultural and sporting venues that cater to both visitors and locals." Likewise, the Travel Industry Association estimates that the industry generated more than $99 billion in tax revenues in 2004.

That same year, according to the CIC, the meetings industry poured $122.31 billion in direct spending into the U.S. economy, making it the 29th-largest contributor to the Gross National Product.

If meeting planners have been doing their job for decades - or centuries or even millennia - with far-reaching financial impact, why has it been only recently that the rest of the world considers this a profession in its own right?

"We have not seen ourselves that way," Eisenstodt said. "Instead of taking praise for incredible feats, we say the equivalent of 'aw shucks' versus saying 'thank you' and then showing how we did something."

Hilliard agrees. "I think we are our own worst enemies," she said. "I think because meeting planners understand themselves and each other, we forget to educate the 'outsiders' about what it is we do and how we do it. There's a misconception by the upper echelons of what meeting planning really is." However, Hilliard believes new changes such as degrees in meeting management can give the industry credibility.

Biback thinks it helps to recognize meeting planning as a profession simply by talking about it that way, explaining that it's not new, that it's been around a long time, and has significant influence. "The Canadian government recognized it in 1999 as a true profession," Biback said. "And it is a fascinating profession."