Only on Focus - WOW! DuPage

When Terri Ribble, director of global accounts for ConferenceDirect in Dallas, began searching for a location for her client’s 2009 meeting, she zeroed in on two key factors: accessibility and cost.

“My client was the Association of Food and Drug Officials,” she says. “Their meeting rotates through seven geographical areas and we were looking at overall cost and ease of air access. We were bringing in top level government officials and the Chicago area looked perfect.”

After some research, Ribble found she was priced out of Chicago and “landed on DuPage,” an area she wasn’t familiar with.

“Not being from the Midwest, I’d never really heard of DuPage before I started looking,” she says, adding that her client wasn’t sure about the idea at first.

“My client was a little dubious about going outside of a downtown area,” she says.

But when they visited the area for a site inspection, Ribble said they were both taken my surprise.

“The quality of the hotel product for the price was wonderful,” she says. “It was like going to a first-tier destination with second-tier pricing.”

Restaurant and entertainment options were also important to the group.

“It was very important that they had places to go at night,” Ribble says. “During the day, the attendees have to be careful of government per diems and special pricing. But when they go out at night, they wanted to go to nice places.”

DuPage won the bid, and in June 2009 Ribble brought 275 delegates from the association to DuPage for a week-long meeting.

“We stayed at the Doubletree in Oak Brook, and even though it was a suburban location, there was a plethora of nice restaurants and things to see and do within walking distance, which is kind of unusual,” she says. “They walked everywhere.”

Attendee reaction?

“They were glad to be able to utilize a destination with such good air access,” Ribble says. “The service that we experienced at the hotel was awesome. We kept getting little comments about individual experiences with service.

“For example, one of our board members was trying to get a Coke out of a machine and the machine wasn’t working, so the housekeeper went into the back and just brought him a Coke,” she continues. “It is little things like that that make a world of difference. We found DuPage to have the amenities of a first tier destination, but the pricing and the friendliness of a second or third tier destination.”

But would Ribble take a group back to DuPage?