Meetings industry veteran Joan Eisenstodt, chief strategist of Washington, D.C.-based Eisenstodt Associates and moderator of Meetings Focus Forum (www.MeetingsFocusForum.com), owned by Meetings Focus, won the International Association of Conference Centers’ (IACC) Mel Hosansky Distinguished Service award.
Presented on the closing night of IACC’s 2011 Annual Conference, held at Leesburg, Va.’s National Conference Center March 23-25, it is the association’s highest honor and voted on by its board of directors.
Ever an advocate for meetings industry education, Eisenstodt framed her achievement in terms of the top-level learning environment provided by IACC-certified conference centers.
"In 1981, when I first learned about conference centers, I was blown away that there really were facilities that supported learning and learning objectives," Eisenstodt told Meetings Focus. "That there were places to hold meetings where things could be tacked on walls, meeting space was available on a 24-hour basis, breaks were continuous (versus scheduled for only 15 minutes!) and the chairs were comfortable, knocked my socks off! To be honored—as a non-IACC member—for believing in and promoting good learning in facilities that support it is remarkable."
Eisenstodt also had kind words to say about the man who the award is named for, who was the editor of both Successful Meetings and Meetings & Conventions magazines and an original proponent of the conference center concept.
"Mel Hosansky was a mensch and an industry leader," she said. "He promoted the reality and concept of conference centers before many knew what they were. To receive this award named for him is an overwhelming honor. Like Mel, I believe that if more meetings were designed well and held at conference centers, the ROI for all stakeholders would be higher."
In other IACC news, Jamian Lewis, chef at the U.K.’s Devenport Hotel, won the Copper Skillet competition, which recognizes the top conference center chefs in the world.
Business Getting Better
A highlight of the educational portion of the conference featured R. Mark Woodworth, president of Colliers PKF Hospitality Research, who delivered a U.S. Lodging and Conference Center Industry Overview presentation that was cautiously optimistic.
"The data is very positive," Woodworth told the audience. "It is good and getting better."
Woodworth said that the level of employment in the U.S. is increasing, which is a key economic barometer, although he later added that increasing oil prices could significantly dampen any recovery.
"You’ve got the momentum going on and things are looking very, very positive," he said.
Woodworth said he expects the luxury segment to realize the greatest RevPAR (revenue per available room) increases when comparing 2010 to 2011; up 9.6 percent. The upper-upscale segment forecast during the same time period calls for a 7.1 percent increase, and the upscale segment should see a 6 percent positive swing.
Conference centers tend to lag full-service hotels, however, and Woodworth said that the 2010 conference center occupancy rate estimate came in at 53.1 percent, while full-service hotels registered a 67.7 percent occupancy rate. Both average daily rate and RevPAR are trending upward in both segments, however, and should translate into a "very good year" for group customers in 2012.
