Meetings East spoke with three experienced medical meeting planners to get their take on what CVBs are doing right and what they could do better.
What CVB services do you appreciate?
- Karen MacFarland, meetings manager, The American Association of Physicists in Medicine, College Park, Md. I appreciate it when a CVB prepares a customized Web page for exciting stuff going on in the city. Either that, or when they arrange for a concierge or hostess for all of the spouses that come.
- Bobbie Turner, director, convention and meeting services, American College of Physicians, Philadelphia I really feel the best CVBs are the ones that really try to get to know my organization. What are our quirks, how we are unique.
I also appreciate it when the CVB salesperson stays involved in your meeting after the transition to the convention services manager has been made.
What can CVBs do better?
- Barbara McLeod, CMP, president, Matrix Meetings Inc., Rochester, Minn. On the front end, it would be great if they could understand what my space needs are. I’ve had experiences where they will send out an RFP to every venue in a 40-mile radius. Then I hear from all these hotels whether they are appropriate or not.
CVBs could also make it easier to get through to the right person. Sometimes there is a maze and then you end up with a voicemail and they don’t get back to you. When you can’t get what you need, it is frustrating. If they had a resource person who could direct me the right way, that would be great. Anything they can do to save us time.
- MacFarland I would appreciate it if they got on the ball with local transportation. Sometimes I have to work to figure out the public transportation. A lot more people are trying to be green and not spend money on a cab ride. It would be great if they provided a diagram or map to tell my attendees when and where to go.
- Turner It would be great if CVBs could help with marketing. That is a big, big thing now. Medical groups, just like everyone else, are feeling the pinch of the economy and any assistance with marketing is really big. It would be nice if they could tailor or customize marketing for the organization that is coming to their city—to reach out and try to drive attendance.
Another thing that is very important is for the bureau to work as a liaison between me and the community. If the bureau could give us some ideas on how to tap into the local medical community, that would be really great.
Medical groups have lost a lot of support from sponsorships and from the industry. Because of that, we’ve lost some revenue that we need to put on our meetings. If bureaus could come up with some sort of packages that would include sponsorships during the convention, that would be nice. They could ask me what our biggest challenges are—whether it is sponsorships during speaker sessions or coffee breaks.
