A meeting in Hawaii? For planners, the question mark at the end of that thought is real. Will the considerable draw of the location counterbalance the fallout from those potential attendees and/or exhibitors leery of making the long trip from the U.S. mainland? Hawaii has a way of not only making its geographic location a non-issue but a boon for meetings seeking an international presence. The Hawaii Convention Center (HCC) has built an attendance-boosting program that leverages the strategic advantages of its spot on the globe. Attendees in Japan, Korea, China, and throughout the Pacific Rim have a strong affinity for the island, with Japan currently the convention center's second largest market.

Uniquely positioned as a bridge between North America and the Pacific Rim countries, Hawaii can tap into those markets in a way that other cities can't. By building relationships abroad, fine-tuning marketing efforts, and adding an international sensibility to meeting formats, the center can custom design an international strategy to help associations reach untouched markets.

"Those from Asian countries feel very comfortable here," said June Matsumoto, HCC's director of international sales. "It's a good starting off point for a relationship."

Why Now?
In an increasingly global marketplace, where knowledge and products extend far beyond national borders, Asia plays a key role. The region's importance in health, science, and economics makes accessing those markets all the more important.

"Clearly three quarters of the world's buying population will be in Asia going forward. Global issues are more readily discussed here," said Joe Davis, HCC's general manager.

The HCC attendance program was first road tested with the American Veterinary Medical Association's (AVMA) annual convention in July 2006. The HCC specifically targeted Japan, and the meeting broke attendance records with more than 10,000 delegates and 750 international attendees, the highest numbers in the association's history. The group usually registers between 40 to 50 international delegates at their conventions.

"We saw Hawaii as a jumping-off point," said David Little, AVMA convention manager and director of the convention and meeting planning division. "We realize veterinary medicine is becoming more global. Foot and mouth disease and avian influenza and those kinds of issues are really global in nature. We all need to start talking now."

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) Electromagnetic Compatibility Society's 2007 International Microwave Symposium was held in Hawaii in June, and proximity to Asia played a large role in the site selection. "The most rapid growth in the microwave industry is occurring in Asia. So yes, Hawaii's central location was seen as a plus for attracting that segment," said Wayne Shiroma, Ph.D., the symposium's chairman.

An international focus can be a necessity for another reason: stagnant attendance numbers.

"It's not necessarily a program for everyone, but as associations stabilize their membership and look for ways to add value to their membership, they're going to have to look for ways to reach out internationally," Davis said. "What better place than Hawaii to do that?"

A One-of-a-Kind Partnership
No two associations will navigate the program's possibilities in quite the same way. It's a very personal process, geared toward the strengths and contacts of each association. Fundamentally, the association and the convention center seek to identify counterparts in other countries, establish a relationship with key players in those associations, and craft an appealing message to draw those association's members to Hawaii. Most associations have some international contacts, so the question is where are those contacts … and where are they not. HCC will step in to fill any gaps.

"We try to enhance what they're already doing," Matsumoto said.

Often association executives will visit counterpart associations in Asia to cement ties and offer an invitation. AVMA had a significant advantage in one member veterinarian who has lived in Hawaii for several decades. His access and personal contacts in Japan started the dialogue with Japanese associations, with the convention center contacts stepping in to help coordinate trips abroad to those associations. "If you've got somebody who knows those cultures and knows how to get in touch, they can far and away do the most good," Little said.

With more than 7,000 attendees, the American Dietetic Association (ADA) had approximately 60 attendees from Japan and 166 international attendees overall at its Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo in September 2006. ADA has a longstanding relationship with the Japanese Dietetic Association, which served as a starting point for international strategy.

Both the association leadership and the convention center reached out to international associations in Japan and elsewhere. The convention center has a contracted employee based in Japan to focus on convention business. Ron Moen, CEO of ADA, attended meetings with the trade press along with convention center staff, and he made a trip to the Philippines to establish contacts there.

Moen's role was crucial due to a strict protocol involved in approaching the Pacific Rim associations: The contact needs to stem from an association, not the HCC. The convention center staff will help with how to write and frame a request, but they won't initiate the contact. But after an American association reaches out - and with the HCC's relationship with other associations - that initial contact becomes an entrée to a deeper relationship.

"We can't go in as the HCC," Matsumoto said. "It needs to be a request from an American association. We had a relationship with the Japan Dietetic Association, but we felt to get it started the contact needed to come from the ADA."

Getting the Word Out
The HCC works with the association to assess the main message of the conference … and whether that message should shift according the market. "Sometimes it's the same message to all the countries; other times we're targeting each specific market and tweaking the message," Davis said.

The multiple-pronged marketing effort requires organization and cultural knowledge - each country requires not only a different language but a distinct strategy, yet the strategies must all interlock and overlap. The convention center coordinates the outreach efforts in each country, updating the associations on the specific developments. Association leadership collaborates on marketing decisions, with the bureau then taking the lead on implementing the ideas. So the association and the HCC might discuss whether to run an ad aimed at a particular Korean market, then the HCC would design the ad and run the copy by association leadership.

"They really made it easy for us," AVMA's Little said. "She [Matsumoto] would call with ideas and say, 'Why don't we run an ad in a Japanese vet journal?' Or she'd let me know where our 10,000 brochures were going. She made those contacts and kept us informed and always checked with us before saying 'yes' to anyone."

The marketing program addresses the fundamental language barriers first. For no charge, the HCC created Web pages linked to the HCC's and AVMA's Web sites that were translated in Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean. (See sidebar.) Although the entire AVMA site wasn't translated word for word, the foreign language pages clearly conveyed the essentials of the association and the meeting. The convention center staff also identified and targeted key trade publications in the selected countries, crafting ads and editorials as part of the overall PR program. The bureau translated a convention welcome DVD into three dialects so AVMA could make presentations at Pacific Rim countries.

Aside from logistical information, the HCC tries to simplify all aspects of the trip for international attendees. "Normally if they haven't traveled to the states, they have no idea of how to go about this," Matsumoto said. "They don't know what type of support they'll have here, so we try to create a comfort zone where they can learn about more practical things."

The HCC has discovered that many international attendees bring families, so questions like where to go snorkeling can be just as prevalent as questions about convention center logistics. Along with providing information on the Web, the convention center keeps an office in key cities where potential delegates can call and speak with someone about their trip and arrangements. (In addition to the contracted employee in Japan, the HCC has a presence in Beijing.) On-site brochures are translated. Many of the associations make sure to hire multilingual staff to man the registration and help desks. The bureau can assist in introducing translators to the associations if they need assistance in this area.

The Association's Role
Much of the content in a specialty remains relevant regardless of geography, but both ADA and the AVMA wanted to address specific interests of the Asian audience. The ADA developed some additional sessions, working with its counterpart in Japan to identify areas of interest for its members. Only three sessions were developed after assessing potential topics geared toward the Japanese attendees, but the association hopes to target more sessions in Philadelphia in 2007.

"You have to work with that counterpart organization and find out what's most critical for them and what they hope to get out of it," Moen said.

AVMA had three rooms targeted to Pacific Rim attendees. One room featured Japanese translations of sessions all day, one offered Chinese and Korean in the morning and Mandarin in the afternoon, and one focused on Japanese vet technicians. All the rooms used sequential translating, meaning a speaker gave a few sentences in English, then paused while a translator converted the comments to the audience's language.

Moen emphasized the importance of making a commitment to the international venture with appropriate goodwill gestures like offering non-member Asian attendees the member registration rate. "Little things like that encourage them to look at the meeting a little differently and see what might be of interest," Moen said.

ADA held meetings with a number of members who were trained in the United States and who live and work in Japan. Planners asked what topics they would suggest to interest potential Japanese attendees.

"It was too late to change our program," Moen said. "But we could see what we should highlight in our program. And if we'd started earlier, we would have been able to add programs. If you're really going to do this you need to start two years out; we started a year out. It takes a lot of time for communication and development, and you have to be sure you're not competing with their domestic meetings."

ADA planners realized late in the process that they should have adjusted the abstract submission process to allow for Japanese abstracts because submitting work would have allowed attendees to receive reimbursement from schools or employers. (Weeks before the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society 2007 Annual Symposium in June, the number of papers being submitted from participants from Asian countries have been "neck-and-neck" with the number of papers submitted from the United States.)

"You just have to figure out what makes sense for them and you at the same time," Moen said.

The Payoffs
As much as a one-time boost, the attendance program in Hawaii offers the possibility of a new wave of international attendance.

"We hope to use this as a stepping stone," Moen said.

The AVMA, too, hopes Hawaii started a trend that will build, spilling over to the 2007 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Of course, continuing the international focus may be harder outside of Hawaii. AVMA retained the Hawaii-based vet who was so crucial to the 2006 meeting's success as an international ambassador, but then there are the nuts and bolts of international outreach. The association is considering translating some session content on its Web site, but the translations would be expensive, and the association wants to balance cost with reward.

Payoffs can be more quantifiable as well. Pacific Rim attendees tend to appreciate retail options.

"If associations have a retail hall where they're selling off the floor, it can be a huge draw," Little said. "Our international attendees bought a lot. Some exhibitors didn't come or cut back their booth space because they thought numbers would be down in Hawaii, but the ones that were there were more than pleased."

Many ADA exhibitors sold out before the end of the second day. "Asian delegates are very happy with cash and carry," Matsumoto said.

"The perception is that they're not going to get traffic on the floor, but the reality is they get more traffic on the floor," Tanaka said. "Although booths may have shrunk, some people are scratching their heads saying, "I've got more business than I've ever had."

An Unexpected Piece Of the Puzzle

As part of its international outreach program, the Hawaii Convention Center (HCC) helps offset one fundamental difference between North American meeting planning and Pacific Rim planning: tour operators. In many Asian countries, travel - including meeting travel - is conducted through tour companies, which means an extra step in coordinating attendee plans.

"In some of these countries, people aren't used to going online and buying tickets the way we do independently," said June Matsumoto, HCC's director of international sales. "The tour operators are able to package everything together."

Attendees arrive in a tour group, a practice which in part helps with language and cultural familiarity. The tour companies expedite the process, smoothing out possible confusion involved in registering and arranging travel. The companies also confirm attendees' plans, which leaves planners with more definite pre-conference numbers.

But for North American planners, the tour groupings raise issues with getting credit toward room blocks.

"That's where the partnership comes in," said Ron Moen, CEO of the American Dietetic Association. "You have the convention center to help explain to the staff who's working with you on how it comes together."

The convention center collaborates with the agencies solidifying the list of confirmed attendees and simplifying the process for those attendees to sign up for programs. Room block strategy depends on the particular meeting. The center has worked with housing bureaus to reserve blocks of rooms for the travel companies within the negotiated blocks, and in other cases travel companies have secured their own space and have reported the numbers to the association to be counted in their housing report.

It's still a work in progress.

"This type of tour to bring delegates is still very new, so we're finding we have to educate the tour companies," Matsumoto said. 

Net Gains

 Crossing geographic boundaries, the Web plays a key role in opening up North American meetings to the Pacific Rim. The Hawaii Convention Center crafts individual microsites to relay an association's message to particular markets in a particular culture.

Essentially, Asian attendees have sites crafted with their own needs in mind. The microsites include the same basic information as the main association meeting site, but the information is translated and clarified, with the microsites cross-linked to the association pages in multiple ways. The content is up to the association, but the HCC can include not only meeting information but options for free time, registration forms, and destination-centered clips. HCC has created Japanese language sites and plans to do Korean versions and both simplified and traditional Mandarin.

Most of all, these microsites are much easier than the main association sites for foreign attendees to navigate.

"If English is your second language, it's really hard to navigate those," said Randall Tanaka, HCC assistant general manager. "The microsite itemizes key areas and in their key language."

° Contributing Editor Ginny Phillips is a freelance writer in Birmingham, Ala.