The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority announced that project designers and builders will need two additional years to accomplish the $737 million renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The city has pushed back the expected completion date to 2012. American Express business travel data for 2006, released this past March, revealed that the average domestic airfare increased by 7.2 percent over 2005, while international airfares in that period rose by an average of 12.8 ...
Silversea’s Silver Wind in European waters European incentive programs are a popular reward: According to M&C’s 2007 Global Planner Survey, 32 percent of U.S.-based planners’ firms will hold programs there in 2007, and 42 percent will do so next year. However, a growing number of groups are viewing the continent from a ship’s deck, rather than from on land. Cruise lines such as Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Sea Dream Yacht Club and Silversea Cruises report increased incentive ...
Maritz Inc., the incentive firm based in Fenton, Mo., has released new results from a fall 2006 study suggesting that different rewards have different effects on employees, based on personality types. The study, which asked 1,003 full-time employees about their reward preferences, identified six distinct personalities. * Award seekers are motivated by monetary and trophy value; their reward preferences are gift cards and travel. * Nesters prefer rewards that don’t take them away from home, ...
Ambassadors International, based in Newport Beach, Calif., has agreed to acquire Windstar Cruises from Holland America Line, a unit of Carnival Corp. Windstar’s fleet comprises three ships: the 312-passenger Wind Surf, the 148-passenger Wind Star and the 148-passenger Wind Spirit. Ambassadors acquired Delta Queen Steamboat Co. last April; with the addition of the Windstar ships, it will have 10 vessels in its fleet. In addition to its cruise group, Ambassadors has a meeting, incentive and ...
CO, Denver Hotel: Brown Palace Hotel & Spa. Renovations to be completed: May. Price tag: $8 million. Rooms: 241. Meeting space: 13,000 square feet. Key changes: renovated guest rooms to be wrapped up this month and a guest bathroom facelift to be completed by the end of 2008. GA, Atlanta Hotel: Hyatt Place Atlanta Galleria (formerly AmeriSuites). Opened: March. Rooms: 123. Meeting space: 1,586 square feet. Key changes: renovated guest rooms and public spaces; now offering free shuttle ...
Crunching numbers: Baltimore Convention Center Several mid-tier meetings destinations are suffering disappointing numbers, with convention and visitor bureaus in those cities under increased pressure to generate sales. Baltimore, for example, is experiencing what its boosters characterize as a “trough” in upcoming group business for 2008-2010. Indeed, bureau numbers recently revealed in The Baltimore Sun point to more than a 70 percent decrease in hotel room night bookings, from 254,126 in ...
February was a month of reorganization at Dallas-based Meeting Professionals International, as several positions were filled or eliminated. The new executive vice president of the MPI Foundation and strategic partnerships is Katie Callahan-Giobbi, right. She comes to MPI from a two-year stint as senior vice president of sales, service and membership at LA Inc., the Convention and Visitors Bureau. She also recently chaired the search committee that hired MPI president and CEO Bruce M. ...
Making nice: Princess Cruises’ Diamond Princess in Alaskan waters Last February, in an effort to improve relations with Alaska, eight cruise lines joined forces to work with the state’s political and business leaders. The creation of the Alaska Cruise Association was prompted by an initiative, upheld last August, in which Alaskans voted to impose new taxes and environmental regulations on the major cruise lines that sail to the state, including a $50-a-head tax on every passenger. Heading the ...
Two months ago, Marriott International launched a new, one-stop group-marketing sales organization to support its 14 branded New Orleans-area hotels. Heading up that new 12-member sales team is New Orleans-based Kristen McMillon-Rauch, market director of sales, who talked with M&C about the group’s initiative and efforts. What benefits does the new organization give to planners? Instead of calling every hotel to see if their meeting is a fit, planners now have one point of contact for ...
Dr. Brooks Mitchell, right, a professor at the University of Wyoming, has invented a new type of incentive program that incorporates people’s love of playing games of chance. His company, Snowfly, based in Laramie, Wyo., reinforces good behavior of all types by giving employees the chance to gamble for cash and prizes. Here’s an example of how it might work: An employee who demonstrates a desired behavior (e.g., productivity or resolving a customer’s inquiry on first contact) receives a number ...