August 2004 - Standard Register DOX Sales Meeting at the Westin Casuarina Hotel in Las Vegas

Another terrific meeting planning by ARES Travel/HRW, Inc Meeting Services - you always make the meeting planning easy. The Westin Casuarina Hotel in Las Vegas was great! It offers a very professional meeting invironment, walking distance to the strip, all the amenties and more a Starwood hotel offers. Looking forward to planing another successful meeting with ARES TRavel/Hrw, Inc.

Standard Register - DOX, Dayton Ohio

August 2004 - Saddlebrook Resort, Tampa Florida 's new guest accomidations

I wanted to drop ARES Travel/HRW, Inc Meeting Planning Services a brief note to say hello and ask you to please keep us in mind for any up coming meetings you may be planning. Please let me know if I can ever do anything or if you are in the area I would love to show you what is new in the Resort. I have also attached a brochure showing our new guest accommodations, which will be completed in Fall 2004.

Saddlebrook Resort, Tampa Florida

[new furnishings.dpf 443kb]

July 2004 - Seeing Is Believing: What to Look for in a Hotel Site Inspection

Sara R. Torrence, CMP, has more than 20 years' experience in managing meetings. She is the author of How to Run Scientific and Technical Meetings.

Seeing is believing. Experiencing a location - having "been there" - makes you more confident that your meeting and its location are well matched. Your site inspection may take you to two or more cities, especially if you are considering a broad geographical area.

The first step in a site inspection is to create a decision chart, such as the one accompanying this article. List criteria down one axis and the names of sites or facilities across the other. Assign a number-rating system to each criterion and add up the totals. Subjective ("feeling") criteria may weigh as heavily, in some cases, as objective ("facts") criteria. If you go through this process, true choices will emerge.

Dapted from How to Run Scientific and Technical Meetings, by Sara R. Torrence, CMP

June 2004 - A Meeting Planner's One-Minute Course on the Car Rental Business

Do you ever need to negotiate with car rental companies for vehicles for VIPs, your own staff, or that special meeting event? Do you do anything other than check to find out which car rental companies your organization has agreements with, and call and book accordingly?

If you ever book cars in relation to your events, you need to stay abreast of which companies are the leaders in this business, both in market share and financial terms. Here's a one-minute overview for meeting managers:

Hertz remains the leader in terms of system-wide revenue in the U.S. , and total number of rental locations. Avis remains the leader in total number of vehicles.

Avis is also the leader in percentage of revenue coming from business-related bookings, at 65% of its total. In contrast, for example, Thrifty Car Rental tallies only 35-40% of its total revenues from business travelers.

National, Alamo and Budget are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Last November, however, Budget was purchased by Cendant Corp., which also owns Avis.

Airport rental rates remained stable throughout 2002. Intense rate negotiations with corporate travel managers kept corporate rates flat.

Car rentals throughout Europe lagged throughout 2002, contributing to a 4.5% decrease from the previous year in overall volume. As with hotel sleeping rooms, sagging volume creates negotiating opportunities.

Source: Business Travel News

June 2004 - ARES Travel/HRW, Inc can help plan your golf!

San Diego Golf Reservations Books COMPLIMENTARY San Diego Tee Times at the best golf courses in San Diego up to 60 days in advance. Founded in 1992, San Diego Golf Reservations employs more Golf Coordinators than any other San Diego golf management company and has become the largest golf reservation company in San Diego.

May 2004 - Don't Create the Ambiance: It's Built Right In!

While hosting a meeting at a unique venue is still, pardon the expression, "unique"; it really is no longer a novel idea. Unique venues have been hosting meetings for more than 25 years. If you ask any "unique venue" professional to describe his/her venue, you can bank on hearing the word "unique" within the first sentence or two.

Sandra Proctor, National Sales Director of Jillian's Entertainment Venues, sums up: "At a hotel, meeting planners must create the experience. At a unique venue, the experience has already been created for them."

There are four primary benefits of holding meetings/events at unique venues (two are described here; the remaining two will appear in the next News to Use):

Built-in atmosphere: There's no need to order expensive props to create ambiance at a unique venue. Whether it's an art museum, entertainment venue, aquarium or mansion, the ambiance is part of the package.

Technology is abundant: Most unique venues have built-in, high-tech capabilities to service their core business. For example, business centers, racetracks, and college campuses feature cutting-edge technology in their meeting rooms, conference rooms and auditoriums. It's all available for groups to use, typically at a fraction of the cost at hotels.

Source, Meetings News Magazine

March 2004 - Benefits of Outsourcing. Knowing when, and how, to hire is crucial by Sheryl Sookman

Meetings East, March 2004

The downturn in the economy has significantly affected meeting planning departments nationwide. In the case of one large insurance company, its meeting planning department was reduced from five experienced planners to one within a matter of months. A major customer relationship management (CRM) company recently dissolved its whole meeting planning department, and any staff not laid off were dispersed to other departments and given responsibilities outside of the realm of meeting planning.

By these actions, you might conclude these companies eliminated all of their meetings and events, but for the remaining planners, this was not the case. So, who are these companies and organizations using to manage their meetings programs?