Advancements in team building are also helping suppliers create business with planners. During the 1,800-person 2012 MPI WEC in St. Louis, Seattle-based Geoteaming created the MPI WEC Goosechase, sponsored by San Francisco Travel.
The app-driven game provided a cell phone photo scavenger hunt during a large international conference where San Francisco Travel sponsored missions in the game. Some of these missions involved getting a photo with a San Francisco Travel representative or with another participant playing the game. The end result was that the networking game was turned upside down. Instead of suppliers hunting down planners, the game incentivized planners to find suppliers that were worth a lot of points.
“The goal was to find things that are new, cutting-edge, tools that planners can use, show how we use it, sponsor it, and more importantly, use it to connect to people,” says John Reyes, executive vice president for San Francisco Travel.
Geoteaming’s Goosechase game generated 439 documented visits with San Francisco Travel, leading to plenty of buzz, over 4,000 photo submissions and new business directly created by the face-to-face booth drop-ins.
