Hotel owners are putting pressure on hotels to produce more profits in this period of very high demand. But incredibly, many hotels have systems in place that make it difficult for groups to fill their blocks. Look at what some of these practices...

While writers such as Jonathan Yardley (in a recent Washington Post column) lament the passing of "cities real and gritty," people like Elizabeth Jackson, the president of the International Downtown Association, Washington D.C., champion the new...

The International Association of Convention & Visitor Bureaus in Washington, D.C., has appointed Edward Nielsen president and CEO. Nielsen joins from the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians, where he had served as executive vice...

In Cambridge, Mass., the 210-room University Park Hotel at MIT topped out in September. The property, which is set to open next summer, offers the Executive Conference Center on its third floor, complete with a business center and 15,500 square...

I told my friends I was going to Biloxi for the weekend and they said, "What for?" Before the "Big Awakening," Biloxi and sister city Gulfport were sleepy Mississippi Gulf Coast towns, known for their Gulf shrimp and air force base. But in just a...

San Jose Arena, home to the NHL Sharks, now welcomes groups of 10,000 or more in its 20,000-seat space. In a release, the San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureaus says its one of the "very few" bureaus to market a city arena for meetings, but it...

That Atlantic City is beginning to look a bit like Las Vegas is by design, not accident. No, they haven't imported sand from the desert--with Atlantic City's unparalleled beachfront, there's no need to. And don't count on seeing palm trees anytime...

What can go up and down at the same time? Air fares, of course. The problem for meeting planners these days is that U.S. airlines' fare structures are taking on such complexity and changing so often that convention planners are questioning the...

The Portland and Oregon Visitors Association has named Gretchen Gettles convention sales manager. Gettles, who will handle small meetings, most recently served as national association sales manager for the Jantzen Beach and Columbia River...

Profit is not a four-letter word to our members," declares Stephen A. Schuldenfrei, executive director of the eight-year-old Society of Independent Show Organizers (SISO), Framingham, Mass. And risk is not a four-letter word for Schuldenfrei...