Hail to the New Chiefs

A whole new crop of MPI chapter leaders have taken the reigns of their local organizations, facing perhaps one of the busiest year-long periods of their lives as they juggle member needs with their professional and personal lives.

Organizing educational programs, corralling sponsorships, playing king or queen networker—the responsibilities seem as endless as the hours demanded.

And while the fortunes of the hospitality industry continue to turn, each new president will have to deal judiciously with the competing concerns of planners and suppliers, flitting about like a social butterfly while keeping a firm hand on the gavel and a steady grip on the steering wheel of the chapter.

For the second year, Meetings South tapped into these industry aspirants to get the skinny on what initiatives they will spearhead during the next year, as well as to get a flavor of the hospitality industry in their regions.

We also touched base with Hugh K. Lee, the new chairman of MPI, to see what he has in mind at headquarters, and to get his opinion on some of the most important trends that are affecting the industry.

Remember, if you see these poor, harried souls sprinting from meeting to meeting during the next year, with a binder full of loose notes and a glazed look in their eyes, offer them a cup of coffee—maybe even a Danish—and give them a pat on the back, because believe us, they've earned it.

CAROLINAS
Representing North and South Carolina; 435 members

Heidi Walters, CHME
Greater Raleigh CVB; Assistant Director of Sales
www.mpi-cc.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

Elevating the chapter tobe the leading voice for meetingsand conventions in the Carolinas. We have outlined some details to take us to that level; and to raise our website up to a standard in which it becomes the one place all of our members go to for the most currentinformation about the industry in our two states.

What are the major challenges facing your organization, and what are your plans to tackle them?

Our biggest challenge is geography. We currently have six bimonthly meetings that rotate around the two-state region. The meetings last one-and-a-half days each and provide our memberswith four-plushours of education. Our challenge is getting planner members to the meetings; it's time out of the office and money from their company.

What are the major challenges facing your destination, and what are your plans to tackle them?

Until recently, North Carolina ranked No. 3 in film production for the nation. The loss of a large portion of this business to Canada is greatly affecting those areas that benefit from the film industry. North Carolina is currently struggling withthe issue of adjusting its school schedules to begin after Labor Day and end at Memorial Day; this change would have a great impact on our vacation regions. Our states are constantly facing the issue of protecting our occupancy tax dollars so they are only used for tourism projects.

Our chapter will beworking to secure board positions on the leading tourism boards for bothNorth and South Carolina. We will also begin publishing legislative issues on our website and newsletter.

DALLAS/FORT WORTH
Representing the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area; 750 members

Melissa S. Logar, CMP
PricewaterhouseCoopers; Meeting Manager
www.mpidfw.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

To create professional development pathways and resources that enable members to evolve their careers toward positions or perspectives of strategic understanding and influence; aggressively pursue opportunities to influence executives about the value meetings bring to their organizations; and intensify business opportunities for supplier members.

What are the major challenges facing your destination?

The proposed increase in occupancy and rental car taxes to help finance a new stadium.

How have the convention and visitors bureaus in your region helped support the meeting planning industry during the past 12 months?

Our new director of the Dallas CVB, Phillip J. Jones, and Dallas Mayor Laura Miller are traveling with the DCVB on sales-blitz meetings with potential customers.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

The brand-new Frontier Flight Museum at Love Field (www.flightmuseum.com).

What major new facilities have either come on-line in your region during the past 12 months, or have been announced?

Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center.

HOUSTON AREA
Representing Houston, Conroe, The Woodlands, Galveston, Beaumont, Katy, and the Texas Gulf Coast area; 324 members

Richard Waits, CMP
Navigant Meeting Services; Operations Manager
www.mpi-hac.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

Delivering strong ROI to all chapter members; developing my board's leadership and development skills; strength- ening the financial assets of the organization.

What attributes of your region should planners from outside of the region know about when considering booking a meeting there?

The Houston area is an affordable destination with two major airports that provide incredible accessibility from almost any departure city; it is centrally located and is equidistant from the East and West coasts; it is located on the Texas Gulf Coast and supports regular cruise departures to the Western Caribbean; and pleasant weather year-round supports a lovely green topography, which in turn allows visitors and residents to participate in outdoor activities during every season.

Are there any emerging meetings destinations in your area?

Downtown Houston continues to be one of our top meetings destinations. Additionally, Galveston Island, The Woodlands and Sugar Land have added dramatic new facilities in the past year.

KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS
Representing Kentucky; 160 members

Ellen Fox, CMP
Belterra Casino Resort & Spa; Sales Manager
www.kbcmpi.com

What are your goals during your tenure?

F.U.N! Fellowship United by Numbers! Increase educational opportunities and scholarships for all members; improve ROI; provide quality programming at all professional levels; and increase our exposurethroughout the state to allmarkets within and outside the industry.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

We're home to the Bourbon Capital of the World; the best two minutes in sports: The Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs & Keeneland racetracks;Newport Aquarium;Kentucky Horse Park; Kentucky Speedway; Six Flags; Thunder Over Louisville—the nation's largest fireworks display; historic homes; great dining; incredible parks; and lots of fun!

Are there any emerging meetings destinations in your area?

Muhammad Ali Center; Frazier Historical Arms Museum;Louisville Marriott Downtown; 4th Street Live Entertainment Complex; and Newport Levy.

NORTH FLORIDA
Representing Jacksonville to Daytona to Gainesville and the entire Panhandle; 82 members

William R. Rodish, CMP
PRI Productions; Director of Business Development
www.nfmpi.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

Increase membership; increase revenue through additional streams; and stress fiscal responsibility for the continued viability of chapter.

What are the major challenges facing your organization, and what are your plans to tackle them?

Membership attrition: We plan on adding committee members to not only recruit, but to retain.

What are the major challenges facing your destination, and what are your plans to tackle them?

Lack of a sufficient convention center: We are working closely with the CVB to convince the city government about the necessity of a new or improved convention center.

In talking with your members, what kind of feedback are you getting in terms of procurement departments taking control of meeting budgets?

Budget control is a major issue. Funds are being decreased more and more and "fringe" items, which excite attendees, are being cut completely.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

Casa Marina Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach; Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine; and The Ribault Club on Ft. George Island.

Are there any emerging meetings destinations in your area?

Palm Coast, Fla.

If you could ask MPI to place a heavy emphasis on one issue affecting the meetings industry, what would it be?

How to react to last-minute meetings.

OKLAHOMA
Representing Oklahoma; 101 members

Jeffery Mark Donaldson
PDC Multimedia Productions; Director of Sales
www.mpiok.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

MPI-OK will'get into the MIX' this year—the Meeting Industry eXchange, launching in June. We want to be a part of the leading online industry community and recognize this benefit of membership as our best new prospect for added ROI. This year is about capitalizing on the benefits already offered by MPI Headquarters, and not merely forCaucasian Oklahomans. MPI-OK will learn how to better reachall of Oklahoma. We will capitalize on MPI'sMulticultural Initiative and Women's Initiative and give back more to our community as we do so. In the ongoing pursuit of better education, we have already requested a scholarship for a third Platinum Series speaker in the coming year, an opportunitysponsored by the generosity ofthe MPI Foundation. And, we will rely on innovative experts offering green meetings ideas to help us be more conscientious with our world's limited resources.

What attributes of your region should planners from outside of the region know about when considering booking a meeting there?

Oklahoma has more shoreline than the Gulf of Mexico! Surprises and pristine beautyare found throughout 12 separate ecosystems, all contained within Oklahoma's borders. We offer a wealth of opportunities for tourists and meeting planners, and whether you seek to save money on yourattractions, hotel rooms, meals, or any other associated travel/ event costs, you won't have to haggle to do so in Oklahoma.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

Oklahoma has an array of resorts, including world-class golf and fishing destinations. Oklahoma City hostsglobal meetings on the banks of a river walk in downtown Bricktown. Tulsaoffers two world-class museums, its own opera, symphony and ballet, and straddles the many riches of Route 66.

GREATER ORLANDO
Representing Central Florida: Orlando north to Daytona and south to Cocoa Beach; 352 members

Bonnie Brownell, CMP
Hard Rock Cafe International; Sales Manager
www.goampi.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

Increase attendance at monthly meetings and special events, and increase membership; but more importantly, retain the members that we have.

How are occupancy rates and room rates holding up in your region, and does any fluctuation in them make your destination, in general terms, a buyer's market or a seller's market?

Year-to-date through April, there has been improvements across the board. Metro Orlando's occupancy level is currently 73.4 percent, up nearly 9 percentage points from last year at this time (64.8 percent). Average room rates are up 2 percent year-to-date through April ($95.44 vs. $93.66). Room-night demand is up 19 percent from a year ago. Obviously, we are in a seller's market.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

There is a whole region beyond the tourist corridor of International Drive, Universal and Disney that is quaint, beautiful and truly unique. Winter Park, Thornton Park and College Park are all suburbs north of the well-known tourist destination. Each area features wonderful restaurants—many with outside seating—beautiful parks and boutique shopping. Park Avenue in Winter Park is a tree-lined brick street bordered on one side by a park with shopping, restaurants and the Tiffany Museum, housing the largest personal collection of Tiffany glass in the world. Just off Park Avenue, visitors can board pontoon boats for an hour-long guided boat tour of three lakes connected by canals.

If you could ask MPI to place a heavy emphasis on one issue affecting the meetings industry, what would it be?

A hot button with me is and always has been ethical practices. Sadly, in this competitive world, unethical practices rear their ugly head all too often. I believe that high schools and colleges need to teach ethics and good business practices, and MPI could certainly provide guidelines for our student members.

SOUTH FLORIDA
RepresentingMonroe, Dade and Broward counties, and West Palm Beach; 310 members

Suzanne Moore, CMP
Moore Meetings & Incentives; President
www.sfmpi.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

Providing more industry-related education programs; developing new incentives to offer more value for membership; and increase our retention ratio to 70 percent.

What attributes of your region should planners from outside of the region know about when considering booking a meeting there?

South Florida has always been known as a destination with an extensive variety of properties, venues and activities to choose from. High-end chain hotels have established several new properties in the area over the past three years. We have three new Ritz-Carlton properties in Miami alone. The Trump Sonesta and Four Seasons are also complete in the Miami area and all seem to be finding market share. The highest level of service is being provided atreasonable prices. Great packages are beingoffered and a lot of off-site venues are catering to thecorporate and incentive market.

In talking with your members, what kind of feedback are you getting in terms of procurement departments taking control of meeting budgets?

Interestingly enough, the word procurementis becoming an everyday word in our industry. At our recent board retreat, several members commented on how close they now work with the finance department, and are required to complete ROI reports on their meetings. With the trend in our industry pointing to requiring planners to be more focused on all the costs of the meeting, I feel that planners need to arm themselves with knowledge so they can be confident that their budgets coincide with what the procurement departments expect.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

Having lived in the Florida Keys for the past eight years, I'm very partial to what the Keys have to offer. Some of the properties in the Florida Keys have great meeting space, like HawksQuay and Ocean Reef. Key West offers some of the finest smaller resorts you can find, like the PierHouse Resort and Ocean Key House. Miamiis always a hot venue: Check out STATE nightclub on Lincoln Road, the venue of our 2004 Installation Banquet. Las Olas boulevard in Fort Lauderdale has some of the finest restaurants and shopping, and one of the great new areas developing is Delray Beach: great beaches, new restaurants, new hotels, and great shopping.

TAMPA BAY AREA
Representing the central west coast and into thesouthwest coast of Florida; 238 members

Ruth Fitzgerald
DMI; Regional Director of Sales
www.tampabaympi.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

To create professional development pathways and resources that enable members to evolve their careers toward positions or perspectives of strategic understanding and influence; aggressively pursue opportunities to influence executives about the value meetings bring to their organizations; and intensify business opportunities for supplier members.

Our goals are the following: With our current member growth and retention rate, we will become a large chapter, defined by International as having more than 250 members; we will increase the number of CMPs in our chapter from 38 to 45; we will introduce our Masters Series program with educational offerings tailored to members with 10 or more years of experience; we will expand our outreach to current and perspective members south into the Fort Myers area; we will cultivate strategic partnerships with other Florida MPI chapters and the Florida Society of Association Executives to create increased educational and buyer opportunities for all members; we will produce a successful 2005 Meetings Marketplace with more than 80 exhibitors and 150 planner attendees; we will provide award-winning communication tools, including a four-color quarterly newsletter and a website with a searchable member database; we will increase our percentage of volunteer leaders from 26 percent to 32 percent; and we will be the Chapter of the Year!

What are the major challenges facing your organization, and what are your plans to tackle them?

Acontinuous challenge is providing quality education in an industry that is rapidly changing. In addition, we have several members who are newly self-employed as meeting planners and/or are part of independent site selection companies that are being outsourced by major corporations and associations to handle meeting management. Many of them are new to the legal aspects, accounting and tax laws that affect small businesses. Our Education department is aware of these challenges and is planning a variety of educational offerings based on these topics. In addition, we added an Independent Planner committee that meets as a subgroup of our chapter to address these commonchallenges. We are adding two new types of educational programs this year to include e-learning to appeal to our geographically challenged members,and are also offering a Masters Series that will educate our members with more than 10 years of experience.

What attributes of your region should planners from outside of the region know about when considering booking a meeting there?

The Tampa Bay area features everything a planner is looking for: A Tri-City area comprised of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, with two international airports, Tampa International and St. Petersburg/Clearwater International. Most hotels are within 45 minutesof each of these airports, withan emerging meetings community in the Manatee County region of Bradenton/Sarasota; beautiful, pristine, white-sand beaches of the Gulf of Mexico with a wide variety of meeting hotels ranging from moderate to first class, and from downtown to golf/spa resorts; a vibrant downtown district with fine arts, upscale shopping, a range of restaurants, and Florida attractions such as Busch Gardens, Lowery Park Zoo and the Florida Aquarium; and a waterfront convention center, the Tampa Convention Center, featuring more than 677,000 square feet of space.

In talking with your members, what kind of feedback are you getting in terms of procurement departments taking control of meeting budgets?

Consolidation of meetings departments in the corporate arena continues, lending to the company's overall ability to negotiate better rates based on volume. Until meeting planners are seenbyexecutives as senior management thatcan bring major value to their organizations through meetings, the threat of the meeting planning function falling to procurement will exist.

TENNESSEE
Representing Tennessee; 210 members

T. Clark Miller
The Valley Expo & Attractions; Director of Marketing
www.tnmpi.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

Increase membership; hold retention; incorporate fresh meeting programs; and keep financially stable.

What attributes of your region should planners from outside of the region know about when considering booking a meeting there?

That Tennessee is very large and diverse, and filled with music and beautiful landscape and activities that can support multiple types of meetings and events.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

Outlying areas of the state are often overlooked because of the larger cities that dominate in the three specific regions of Tennessee. However, some of these smaller cities boast great amenities and are close enough to larger cities to accommodate a meeting of any size. Golf is also great throughout the state.

Are there any emerging meetings destinations in your area?

The Chattanooga area is really alive with attractions and a new convention center.

If you could ask MPI to place a heavy emphasis on one issue affecting the meetings industry, what would it be?

The lack of respect by upper-level executives to recognize MPI as an educational force in the meetings industry.

TEXAS HILL COUNTRY
Representing Waco, Abilene, College Station, Victoria, Kerrville, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Austin; 337 members

Yvette Remschel, CMP
Independent Bankers Association of Texas; Vice President—Education
www.mpithcc.org

What are your goals during your tenure?

Retention, recruitment and involvement of members.

What are the major challenges facing your organization, and what are your plans to tackle them?

For so long we have been a fairly small chapter, but in the past five months we have grown our membership by at least 75 members. We need to start thinking and acting like a larger chapter so when we do get to that status with International, it will not be a total shock to us. This is going to be the first time in many years that we have put together a formal strategic plan.

What are the major challenges facing your destination, and what are your plans to tackle them?

Many cities are offering lower rates, and it's hard to compete. Also, with Austin, we still don't have a large amount of direct flights coming in or going out.

What attributes of your region should planners from outside of the region know about when considering booking a meeting there?

We have great weather! It doesn't get unbearably cold here—we rarely have snow—so that is a plus. Unless you are doing something in July, the hottest month of the year, then do plan an event outside.

How are occupancy rates and room rates holding up in your region, and does any fluctuation in them make your destination, in general terms, a buyer's market or a seller's market?

It's still a buyer's market, but we are noticing that the rates and occupancy are starting to go up.

What are some of the best-kept secrets, in terms of attractions, restaurants or meeting venues, in your region?

In Austin we have a complimentary downtown shuttle that stops at many bars and restaurants; on the weekends they operate until 3 a.m. Another is the Norris Conference Centers in San Antonio and Austin. The Lady Bird Wildflower Center is a great place to have a reception/dinner. In San Antonio, you have La Villita, located downtown near the convention center.

If you could ask MPI to place a heavy emphasis on one issue affecting the meetings industry, what would it be?

Getting the boss' "buy-in" on the importance of MPI to the meetings industry.

OTHER CHAPTER PRESIDENTS

Georgia: Michael Hall

Gulf States: Maria Irwin

Virginia: Richard Bull