Helping you keep up on the latest industry trends.

By JT Long – Smart Meetings

New SITE study shows travel rewards increasingly seen as key motivator for 2018

Executives surveyed in the annual SITE Index 2018 forecast say that incentive travel is of increasing importance to driving sales and boosting profitability. “Basically, incentive travel works,” is how John Iannini, vice president of meetings and events America for Melia Hotels International, and 2018 SITE Foundation president, summarizes responses from 574 professionals in 72 countries.  And that positive response was despite a very disruptive 2017 that saw a plague of hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorism in some of the most popular travel destinations. “The incentive travel reward continues to create a catalyst that drives company loyalty in a complex marketplace,” Iannini concludes.

Companies are using incentives to help grow business, improve employee engagement, recruit new employees and enhance the relationship between employees and employer. Plus, they are fun, and the winning travelers get to network and understand each other on a personal level—something that can help get things done when they are back in the office. That sense of loyalty was shown to extend even to those who don’t win the trip. The possibility of a reward is motivating.

While Iannini sees it as a positive sign that nearly half of buyers say their budgets are increasing (corporate respondents said their average spend increased from $3,100 to $5,000 in 2017), the survey reveals some nuances that could influence what trips are booked where in future years.

Price Consciousness

While overall budgets may be increasing, many buyers are looking for ways to reduce costs where they can, and that often means selecting less expensive amenities (40 percent in 2017, compared to 18 percent in 2015) and destinations (35 percent in 2017, compared to 18 percent in 2015). One in three say they might be taking fewer people on reward trips and one in four suggest they might book shorter trips.

When adding up the costs, getting there (meaning airline tickets) is about one quarter of the budget. That puts travel time and number of days away from the office under the microscope. Some may be reducing the number of people who quality for incentives, creating an elite level of qualifiers with greater rewards for exceptional performance.

Responsible Rewards

Sustainability and green initiatives are overwhelmingly seen as important to all respondents, but almost all corporate clients (94 percent) say one of the top trends having a positive impact on incentive travel is programs making at least a nod to doing something positive. A majority of events now include at least one CSR (corporate social responsibility) activity. When attendees rate programs, often they report that the opportunity to give back or interact with people in the destination has a lasting emotional impact.

The study also reveals plans for increased investment in technology in the coming years. An event app is now a baseline expectation for most programs. It is a critical way to keep attendees informed, provide updates and let people know about agenda changes. It also makes measuring effectiveness of the meeting easy—a key to improving in future years.

But event planners are not stopping there. Virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence are playing a role in more conferences as a way to maximize participant experiences.  The future of incentive travel is about customization. It starts with choosing destinations that are considered a good value and safe, but the most important factor is appeal to that audience. Once on the ground, the low-tech benefits of an authentic, immersive, cross-cultural experience—with or without thrill-seeking options—take center stage.

Go above and beyond for your attendees by offering these special services at your next event.

By Mitra Sorrells

Digital communication dominates the day-to-day life of business people across nearly every industry, yet attendance at meetings, conferences, and trade shows remains strong. The value of face-to-face interaction is indisputable, but the fact, is the effort to come together—the travel, the cost, the work that piles up while away—can be taxing. So why not consider doing something extra to show your appreciation to your attendees? In recent years a variety of services have emerged that provide unique, and likely unexpected, perks for weary business travelers.

Here’s a look at five that may be a fit for your next event.

Luxury Car Rental
Provide a premium travel experience for your guests by offering them a rental car from Silvercar. The company only rents Audi A4s (silver of course) that are loaded with Wi Fi, Bluetooth, navigation, satellite radio, and leather seats. And the rental process is entirely app-based. Guests receive a special code to book the complimentary rental in the Silvercar app. When they arrive at the airport, they use the app to activate the reservation, unlock the car, and start driving. When they are finished, they simply return the car to a designated space at the Silvercar facility. The service is available at 17 airports, including popular meeting destinations such as Orlando, Chicago, New York, and Las Vegas.

In-Room Massage
Zeel is a massage-on-demand company that operates in 70 cities around the United States. Planners can make the arrangements in advance or offer gift cards so guests can book it themselves using Zeel’s website or mobile app. Massages can be booked seven days a week with as little as one hour’s notice. Zeel’s massage therapists are licensed, insured, and go through in-person screening by the company. Upon booking, customers receive a confirmation with the therapist’s full name, photo, bio, and massage license number. Zeel can also provide chair and table massages at meeting venues.

Luggage Service
Give your guests a completely hands-off luggage service with Bags. Planners can arrange for Bags agents to pick up their guests’ luggage from baggage claim at more than 250 airports nationwide for delivery to destinations within 100 miles of those airports. At the end of the conference or event, Bags offers remote airline check-in at your venue so guests can check in for their flights, receive boarding passes, and check their luggage without standing in line at the airport. Customers receive notifications about their luggage movement via text or email.

Personal Concierge
One Concierge offers a variety of services for your guests in 115 countries around the world. Planners can arrange for a concierge to be at the event to assist guests in person or as a virtual concierge available via phone, email, and Web-based communication. Guests can use the service to secure restaurant reservations, arrange travel services, book nightlife and entertainment experiences, run errands, and more. After the event, planners receive a detailed report including program usage, request types, cost of requests, and more.

Babysitting
The Babysitting Company provides individually-screened, C.P.R.-certified child caregivers in a dozen cities around the country, including Miami, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Orlando. The service can be performed as in-room care for one or a few children, or in a ballroom or other space for a large group, and can include arts and crafts activities, character visits, and more. Off-site excursions, such as a trip to a local museum, also may be arranged. Planners can either plan the services themselves, or pass along information for attendees to coordinate them.

VR- and AR-focused spaces and attractions offer multi-dimensional, often mind-blowing, events for planners and participants.

By Jeff Heilman November 29, 2017

As the dual trends of people demanding unique and memorable experiences—and the preference for participation over mere attendance—accelerate and continue to transform the meetings landscape, physical virtual-reality playgrounds are emerging as a new venue option for groups.

VR simulates real-world or imagined environments. In most cases, participants wearing headgear or goggles are tethered to a VR system and, while using hand controls, engage in multidimensional games and experiences lasting anywhere from around 10 to 20 minutes. Now emerging on the market are venues for untethered, or “free-roam,” play. Helmeted and wearing the VR technology in backpacks, participants can walk about “in” the game, with virtual weapons or other devices in hand.

In development and promising even more immersive experiences are augmented-reality and “mixed”-reality technology. The former enhances, or “augments,” actual physical environments with virtual elements. The latter, also known as “hybrid reality,” combines physical and virtual elements to create new environments experienced in real-time.

From the first wave of location-based VR pioneers, here are some coast-to-coast options for meetings, private events, corporate outings, teambuilding, and more.

Earlier this year, America’s largest indoor water- parks operator, Kalahari Resorts and Conventions, added a VR experience called the Arena to its Wisconsin Dells flagship and to its location in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Using pioneering motion-tracking VR technology from Melbourne, Australia-based Zero Latency, the Arena—which spans more than 2,200 square feet—represents the first warehouse-scale, free-roam, multiplayer VR experience on the market.

While Kalahari does not yet offer the Arena for private events, planners booking at the property can tie in group sessions at the venue. Accommodating eight players at a time, the Arena currently offers three virtual games: Zombie Survival; the Engineerium, a walking adventure in a water-filled alien world with flying whales, stingrays, and other colorful characters; and Singularity, a battle game aboard a military space station.

No plans have yet been announced for introducing the Arena at Kalahari’s Sandusky, Ohio, location, or at its forthcoming fourth property, slated to open in Round Rock, Texas, by 2020.

The same Zero Latency technology and three games are deployed at MindTrek VR, a new facility just north of Boston in Woburn, Massachusetts, that features the world’s first dual VR arenas, according to general manager Brett Bovio. Housed inside a converted industrial park warehouse, each 2,000-square-foot arena accommodates eight participants at a time. While not combinable, the two together create the largest free-roam VR gaming facility in the country.

 

The venue was primarily created with groups in mind, Bovio adds, and it can be used for meetings, outings, or teambuilding sessions. There is dedicated conference and event space for as many as 40 people that comes with tables, chairs, whiteboards, and buffet tables. The venue provides catering, or groups can bring in their own food and beverage offerings. Groups of as many as 90 can rent the 2,000-square-foot open space adjacent to the arenas for use as a dining and meeting area while watching colleagues or clients at VR play.

Announced expansion plans include opening a second venue west of Boston, in Marlborough, Massachusetts, by late 2017, followed by additional sites in Philadelphia and New Jersey.

With combined backgrounds in advertising, animation, gaming and experience design, and theater, San Francisco-based Exit Reality founders Yoni Koenig and Ilya Druzhnikov have created a unique business model and VR venue to “take VR to the people” in trucks outfitted with headsets and hardware. Inside the truck, participants can experience “room-scale” games and experiences, a type of VR that uses movement as well as VR tracking in a particular area to mimic movement in the virtual atmosphere.

The company’s first vehicle was a refurbished mail truck. Now aggressively scaling, Exit Reality is building its own customized vehicles from the chassis up. More fuselage than truck, the design motif is themed around “departures and destinations.” And the partners and their growing fleet are going places. With private and corporate events, festivals, and related gatherings on its map, Exit Reality has brought its VR experience to events in cities from New York to Vancouver.

The company also is rapidly expanding its inventory of VR cubes. Pre-fitted with electronics and lighting, the portable metal enclosures, lined with acoustical foam, snap together to form versatile cubical spaces wherever they are deployed.

Focused on the convergence of meetings, events, hospitality, and VR, Exit Reality’s creators have partnered with Los Angeles-based Viceroy Hotel Group to introduce VR to the luxury brand’s properties. Their flagship project, unveiled in May, was a VR space customized for a corner of the S&L Lounge at Viceroy’s Hotel Zetta in San Francisco. Exit Reality also customizes VR content for brand activations, product launches, and other corporate initiatives.

VR World NYC in New York opened this fall, and stands out in several ways. The first is its high-traffic location—steps from the Empire State Building in Midtown. Second is scale: Covering 20,000 square feet on three levels, it meets its claim of being North America’s “largest virtual-reality experience center.” And with some 50 games and experiences ranging from virtual rock climbing to the VR version of popular mobile app Fruit Ninja, VR World NYC offers the most options by far of any North American venue.

While positioned as an attraction, the venue features its own bar and hosts groups and events. It has private rooms and whole floor options, including the 1,000-square-foot mezzanine or the 6,000-square-foot second floor. Non-buyout capacity is 100 people. Buyouts are conditionally available, ranging from 250 to as many as 400, depending on the number of VR games used. Group admission rates apply to 20-plus individuals, with teambuilding packages available for groups of as many as 30 people.

By Mitra Sorrells – BizBash

From AR to VR and N.F.C. to R.F.I.D., here is the tech terminology that’s shaping the future of conversations around meetings, trade shows, conferences, fund-raisers, and more.

The glossary of must-know terms for planners has been growing in recent years. The invention of new apps, software, hardware, and technology products—including many that seem like something from a sci-fi movie and were unimaginable just a few years ago—is not only disrupting event design and the attendee experience, it’s also creating a new lexicon for the profession.

Here’s our list of 12 essential tech terms for planners. Chances are you have already heard, and experienced, many of these. And if you haven’t, we bet you will in the near future.

Chatbots are interactive communication tools that use artificial intelligence to automate the process of responding to common questions from guests. Rather than assigning a staff person to monitor and answer questions such as “What time is dinner?” or “Where is the networking event?” a chatbot can receive and answer these questions via text, Facebook Messenger, or in an event app.

Virtual Reality puts the user in a computer-generated environment. Participants don a headset or look through a handheld viewer to experience the virtual world, which may include images, sounds, and sensations to create the feeling of being inside that virtual space.

Augmented Reality superimposes graphics, sounds, videos, and more to the user’s view of reality. Unlike VR, which is completely immersive, AR simply enhances, or augments, a real setting.

R.F.I.D. and N.F.C. are related, but not identical, wireless communication systems that use radio waves to transmit information between tags and readers. N.F.C. is a type of R.F.I.D. that is used for close-range communication, such as tapping a bracelet to an exhibitor’s display to receive product information or tapping badges with a fellow attendee to exchange contact information. Traditional R.F.I.D. is effective at longer ranges, so it can be used for purposes such as attendee tracking and access control, without requiring the attendees to take any action.

Geofence refers to a virtual boundary that is created around a real-world location. The system uses GPS or R.F.I.D. to identify when mobile devices are within that boundary and to trigger communication to, or monitoring of, those devices. Planners can use it to create hyperlocal experiences, such as sending a coupon code to attendees when they are near concession stands, and to track engagement within a defined area.

Biometric Data can be gathered via a wearable device, such as a wristband, that measures data such as a person’s movement, skin temperature, heart rate, and more.

Beacons are small, wireless devices which transmit information that can be received by smartphones, tablets, lead retrieval devices, and more. At events, beacons can be used to automate the check-in process, to track attendee movement and dwell time, to share exhibitor or sponsor information with guests, and to assist with wayfinding.

Retargeting is a strategy to reach people who have visited your website but not taken the action you desire, such as registering for your event or buying your product. Planners can also offer retargeting services as a benefit for sponsors, so registered attendees see ads from the event’s sponsors in the weeks prior to the event.

Ultrasonic Beacons transmit tones that can be picked up by a smartphone’s microphone. The tones are inaudible to the human ear and can be used in a variety of ways at events, including ticketing, wayfinding, scheduling, and more.

Big Data refers to the large volume and complexity of data that is generated by every action we take online, and in some cases even when we’re offline. When people visit websites, communicate on social media, carry GPS-equipped smartphones, check in to venues, etc., those actions create “digital footprints” that can be analyzed to influence future decisions and, in the case of events, better attendee experiences.

Emotion Analysis is done with facial recognition software and a webcam to analyze the expressions on a person’s face. Using intelligence culled from thousands of existing pictures of faces, the algorithm analyzes and interprets parts of the user’s face, such as the corners of the mouth or the position of the brow, and that information is linked to emotions.

Planners share how they’re reconsidering security strategies in the wake of recent terrorist attacks at events like the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in May.

By Ian Zelaya

“We have always had a security strategy in place due to the high-caliber attendees we have at our events and conferences, but in this turbulent climate, we are refining that with more detailed security and communication strategy. Examples of some of the things we look at are making sure that strategic members of our company have a list of all people that are attending the event in case of emergency, and coordinating evacuation procedures and emergency plans with our venue and sometimes the host city.”
Cathi Culbertson, vice president of event marketing and conferences, Forbes Media, Jersey City, New Jersey

“We’re seeing a lot of clients asking about R.F.I.D. technology, especially at check-in. It offers extra security because there aren’t any ‘pass-backs’ of tickets or wristbands to get into events. Plus, R.F.I.D.-encoded badges or wristbands are unique to each attendee, so it can verify their information for access control, photo ID, automated attendance scanning, and so on.”
Monica Wolyniec, marketing and communications manager, Boomset, New York

“Given the concerns of today’s climate, the safety of our clients and their guests is paramount. Unfortunately, religious locations have become a target, and appropriate measures need to be taken. We also require hosts to have adequate security on kids’ parties to protect all guests and to ensure all safety of teens and minors.”
Bob Conti, business partner, Ed Libby & Company Events, New York

“I had a pretty unsettling experience at a client meeting at a local venue a couple of years ago. Since the meeting included the executive HR team, they brought in an employee to let him go. Thankfully everything worked out fine, but the nature of the reasons for his dismissal could have made it a very risky situation. It certainly made me realize how important it is that our client host and high-level attendees know that their decisions and actions can affect the security of their meeting. It’s become a talking point in my client risk-management briefing now—not that we want to be nosy, but just for them to keep in mind that if something like this example were required, the annual meeting is not the appropriate setting.”
Heather Herrig, principal, Every Last Detail, Atlanta

“We offer clients the option of doing bag checks and metal detectors at the doors. We work with corporate clients with events open to the public, so some clients prefer this option and others pass on it. We always do a briefing with the venues and security team on security procedures as well.”
Karen Hartline, C.E.O., Reinventing Events, Las Vegas

“Our security strategy is very different depending on the type of live experience we are producing. For example, if it is a public event—like when we recently did a Times Square takeover with Cosmopolitan and Bare Minerals Beauty—we work with multiple city agencies and permitting offices to create a very tight security plan. However, when we produced a private 40-person press dinner for luxury timepiece makers Patek Phillipe in a private gallery that featured collectible automobiles, we needed security so no one damaged the vehicles. We also needed security to accompany the rare timepieces. They were very subdued, in the background, and not imposing since it was a contained, private event.”
Cara Kleinhaut, partner and C.E.O., Agenc, Los Angeles