When it comes to planning global meetings, few professionals have the savvy of Rotary International's powerhouse team of four. Together, they represent more than 50 years of experience and are aligned with a company known for its commitment to good causes around the world. As a reflection of that, 40 of the Evanston, Ill.-based association's past 100 annual conventions have been held outside the United States, and over the next four years, the planning team will organize mega-conventions in Montréal; Bangkok, Thailand; Lisbon, Portugal; and Sydney, Australia, each of which is expected to draw between 15,000 and 45,000 attendees.
While a certain level of global expertise is fundamental to pulling off a successful event, the team members agree, executing one with finesse and grace takes patience, flexibility and a lot of cultural homework.
"I am sure I have offended many people throughout the world, but never intentionally," says L.J. Williams, RI's manager of international meetings. "A smile, a thank you and a willingness to say a few words in their language go a long way toward building trust and letting people know you are sincere about working with them."
With business beginning to rebound after a severe global recession, now is an ideal time to revisit and hone the craft of planning meetings around the world.
Going global Thirty-three years ago and fresh out of college, Steve Sulkin formed Chicago-Based MBM Productions International, the acronym standing for Meetings for Business and Medicine. On a whim, he had added International to the company name after his lawyer advised there was an MBM Productions already in business. Three days after hanging out his shingle, Sulkin got his first piece of business. "They said they called me because I was the only company listed with international in the name," he recalls. "And off I went to run my first European meeting."
Prophetic? Perhaps, because in 2009, 80 percent of MBMPI's business was in overseas markets, up from 50 percent two years ago, with a fair share of that going to China, India, Peru and Russia. "Pharmaceutical meetings are shifting overseas in dramatic numbers," notes Sulkin, "and local versions of each country's regulations and cultural differences makes producing meetings an endeavor that should be undertaken only after careful research and consideration."
Sulkin and other meeting professionals offer the following advice for effective global gatherings.
Road Skills
Bonnie Stetz, CMP, CEM, manager, institutes and seminars, of Oak Brook, Ill.-based Lions Club International, has been traveling eight months out of the year for the past three years, facilitating leadership training sessions for 40 to 120 people on every continent except Antarctica. Often, she's the only English-speaking person in the room. Following are her tips for staying sane, grounded and healthy around the world.
• "Even though I'm a caffeine fiend, I never drink it on the plane. I try to sleep as much as possible during the flight."
• "The most important way to stay sane is to get on a schedule immediately. If I arrive in a country after 9 a.m., I stay up until at least 7:30 p.m. so I can get on a regular sleep schedule. Also, I don't sleep during the day."
• "Whenever I can get it, I keep CNN or the BBC on in my hotel room, so I can keep abreast of events around the world."
• "My iPod and iPod speakers are essential. I prefer to bring speakers instead of headphones, and I listen to my playlist as I'm getting ready for the day. I keep my iPod loaded with my favorite tunes, which right now are ‘Viva La Vida' by Coldplay and Kanye West's ‘Homecoming,' which is all about Chicago."
• "I pack my favorite snacks: Snyder's Peanut Butter Pretzels and cranberry-chocolate chip trail mix. It's a taste of home, especially when I am in a place where I'm constantly guessing at what I could be eating."
By Cheryl-Anne Sturken
• Be patient. The first step in achieving a successful
negotiating point is taking the time to build a solid working
relationship with the destination. "It's not like in the U.S., where you
walk in, sit down and begin hammering out a deal," says Williams. "The
process takes much longer, so start planning early."
Patience is
key to keeping negotiations moving forward, says Richard Rheindorf,
CMP, country manager for Pacific World Beijing, a destination management
company with 19 offices in eight nations. "If you are trying to get a
certain venue, you can't keep calling and calling and pushing them for
an answer," he notes. "They will ignore you and simply shut down. In
China, things take time. You have to build trust and then be patient,
and they will come to you."
A good strategy for planners, says
Rheindorf, would be to begin by sending the venue some information about
the program being organized. Then follow up a week or two later with
another note reiterating interest in the venue, and then simply wait for
a response.
Planners who take the time to build relationships
overseas reap a huge dividend in reliable information. "The most
surprising thing for many planners, once relationships have been
created, is the informed resources that become available," says Jane
Schuldt, CITE, president of Minneapolis-based World Marketing Group.
"It's often to a greater degree than what they encounter on home turf."
•
Rethink contracts. Americans are by nature litigious and rely
heavily on documents such as contracts and proof of insurance. Thanks to
Sarbanes-Oxley regulations and the recent demonization of corporate
meetings in the media, planners today are even more fixated on spelling
out every detail of their event in advance. In other countries, however,
such documentation may take a while to materialize -- if it does at
all.
"In the U.S., long-winded contracts are the norm, and
insurance issues tend always to be front and center," says Eli Gorin,
CMP, president of Aventura, Fla.-based gMeetings Inc. and Train2Meet,
who does a significant amount of meeting business in Latin America. "In
other countries, the handshake mentality is alive and well."
In
agreement is Fred Diniz, managing director and executive vice president
of corporate meetings and incentives for Nanuet, N.Y.-based Global
Events Consultants, where 35 percent of the business is international.
Several months ago, while planning a meeting in Brazil, Diniz e-mailed a
request for proposal to a bus company vendor and prepared to wait
several weeks for a reply. Instead, his phone rang almost immediately.
It was the owner of the company, who told Diniz all the specifics the
RFP had requested, including number of buses in the fleet, references,
costs and more. Diniz liked what he heard, but when he asked to have
something in writing to show his client, the owner was taken aback.
"He
became upset and said, ‘I just gave you my word. Don't you believe
me?' " recalls Diniz, who eventually got the RFP in writing and has
since done another program using the same bus company. "We now have a
better understanding of each other's needs," he says. "I realize now
that he perceived my
asking for that paperwork as mistrust."
•
Enlist reinforcements. For Fred Diniz, the key to resolving
disputes is having someone on the ground back home to rely on. After a
recent corporate program at a Starwood property in Istanbul, Turkey,
there were serious issues with his group's master account, but Diniz did
not have the luxury of staying an extra day to hash out a solution --
he had to move on to another meeting in another country. "I handed off
the problem to my contact at Starwood's national sales office in New
York. They went directly to the general manager of the hotel and
resolved the problem," says Diniz.
If not working with a
U.S.-based hotel chain, experts say it is critical to establish a safety
net beyond the local on-site salesperson in the event of a dispute.
Besides the obvious cultural and language barriers, there is the issue
of navigating a foreign legal system. "Because many independent hotels
and small chains are part of a larger marketing consortium," says Eli
Gorin, "you may want to consider working with one of those umbrella
organizations -- such as Leading Hotels of the World, Small Luxury
Hotels of the World, the Global Hotel Alliance -- and establishing a
contact there, prior to booking directly with the hotel."
•
Establish resources. Reach out to make connections with convention
and visitor bureaus, tourism offices, destination management companies
and professional congress organizers. They know the local resources and
can tap directly into them. Rotary International, with its immense
global network, uses its own members as a first point of reference.
"They might say, ‘Oh, you don't want a hotel in that area of the
city,' " says Shari Pontillo, CMP, associate division manager and the RI
team's interim logistics manager.
For planners who don't have
the leverage of on-site foot soldiers at the ready, there are other
contacts to exploit.
"One resource planners can rely on,
especially if they are going somewhere for the first time, is their own
company's international vendors," says RI's Daryl Taylor, CMP, program
and promotion manager. "Reach out to them, because maybe there is an
opportunity for these vendors to participate in the meeting. At the very
least, it gives the planner another pair of boots on the ground."
Smart
planners use local partners rather than plan their global meetings
solo, says Carol Krugman, CMP, CMM, director, meeting and business event
management, for the Metropolitan State College of Denver's Department
of Hospitality, Tourism and Event Management. "An experienced,
well-established DMC will be the best partner to advise you on what, if
anything, may need to be done or budgeted to execute your meeting
successfully and efficiently," she says.
Cultural considerations The landscape
of an
international meeting can be riddled with rabbit holes. But, armed with a
dose of common sense, cultural insight and the right attitude, the
savvy planner can stay one step ahead of potential pitfalls.
•
Be careful with language. In general, Americans tend to conduct
business in a much less formal manner than people in other countries,
and it helps to hold off on the back-slapping and preempt the impulse to
use idiomatic expressions. "The English that people speak abroad,
especially in Asia, is very official," says Sulkin. "When overseas
partners hear slang terms like ‘that's fishy,' ‘thumbs-up,' ‘horsing
around,' ‘that's a red flag' or ‘it's a wrap,' they may nod but, believe
me, they have no idea what you are saying."
When it comes to
translation services, something a tourism bureau or destination
management organization typically provides, sometimes it is prudent to
hire your own, so you have a real grasp on conversations with vendors,
especially during contract negotiations. "You can't always trust what is
being said in the room," says RI's L.J. Williams. "When the answer to
every question you throw out is yes, yes and yes, it probably is not
yes at all, but more like they want your business and will say yes to
make you happy."
• Respect time differences. Don't try to
implement a policy in which you need answers within, say, 24 hours,
because there will be delays. While e-mailing makes things easier, it is
contingent on paying attention to time zones, because crisscrossing
e-mails will only stretch out the planning process. "Ask yourself if
you're really set up to do international business," says Sulkin, whose
65 employees work in three shifts so they can cover most time zones. "To
get someone on the phone in, say, Singapore, you may have to do all
your calling at night."
• Know how to use gratuities. The
protocol of tipping and gift giving in some countries can be more
complicated than the most complex of housing plans. No matter how
sincere the gesture, get it wrong and the entire meeting can be deemed a
failure. "Tipping, while a very American thing, is just not done in
China," says Pacific World Beijing's Richard Rheindorf. "You definitely
don't leave extra money on the table."
However, gifts, such as a
special bottle of wine or cologne, could be very important. According to
Rheindorf, when in negotiations with Chinese suppliers, particularly at
the government level -- police, security, various local authorities --
gift giving is expected. "I would say it's an art form," says Rheindorf.
"You have to know what to give and who to give it to, and that someone
is usually a middleman. If it comes from a foreigner, it will be seen as
humiliating to the recipient."
Rotary International's team
witnessed firsthand the intricacies of gift giving. "I joked during our
recent Osaka [Japan] convention that we should have had a gift
coordinator on staff, it was that complicated," says Williams. "What was
the right gift? How should it be wrapped? How should it be presented?
It was incredibly important and had to be done right."
In some
countries a small cash incentive is expected, even necessary to get
things done. It's not considered a bribe, but merely the everyday cost
of doing business. "The expectation of upfront gratuities or laminha,
‘a little mud' as it is called in Brazil, is a reality for any
international planner," says Diniz. "In Paris, it's for the guy who
handles the load-in/load-out at the convention centers. Trust me -- you
have to make him or her like you. In Rio, it's the hotel's receiving or
shipping department, and in the Bahamas, it's the customs' clearance
agent."
Web Exclusive For a
review of practical considerations for overseas planning, such as visas,
taxes and shipping, go to mcmag.com/webexclusives.