EDGY MEETING planners might think about cancellation insurance. But they might think twice if they expect it to cover some of the current challenges to successful meetings and incentives...

IMEX, the Worldwide Exhibition for incentive travel, meetings, and events, debuted April 8 to 10 in Frankfurt, Germany, during one of the most difficult times in the history of the incentive industry. There were few planner or exhibitor...

APEX just might be the meeting industry's most ambitious project ever. A five-year mega-effort by the Convention Industry Council to develop and implement accepted practices for the meeting industry, APEX is focused on seven subjects: housing and...

Troubles plaguing travel didn't keep many from the third annual Affordable Meetings Mid-America, held April 1 to 4 at Chicago's Navy Pier. The show, which features educational programming bookending an exposition, is free for meeting planners...

IN LAGUNA BEACH, CALIF., Montage Resort & Spa opened in February. The 262-room resort is sited on 30 beachfront acres, and offers a 20,000-square-foot spa, three swimming pools and more than 20,000 square feet of indoor/outdoor meeting space...

E-CONFERENCING SPIKED just before and after U.S. troops invaded Iraq, but it isn't like the stampede that followed the terrorist attacks of 2001, says Randy Salisbury, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Atlanta-based Premiere...

AT THE OUTBREAK OF WAR with Iraq, Newark, N.J.-based Prudential Financial issued a statement to all of its employees that “all non-critical international travel be delayed, if possible.” On April 8, Prudential's employees received another urgent...

THE BUSINESS TRAVEL Coalition released a number of surveys this spring to take corporate America's temperature on the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome on their corporate travel policies...

FOR YOUR UPPER ECHELON incentive qualifiers, look no further than The Dorchester, Park Lane, London. Since 1831, The Dorchester has been heralded as one of London's best hotels, hosting all the important heads of state throughout the 19th, 20th...

Aeramy K. Paulseen was about seven years old when she went on her first incentive trip. Her father was (and still is) an agent for New York Life in Wichita, Kan. Paulseen, 27, is still going on New York Life incentive trips — but now she earns...