Here’s how to earn your CEU hour.

Once you finish reading this CMP Series article, read the following material: PCMA resources for planning international meetings: http://bit.ly/PCMA-international-meetings.

Then, to earn one hour of CEU credit, visit www.pcma.org/convenecmp to answer questions about the information contained within this CMP Series article and the additional material.

The Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) is a registered trademark of the Convention Industry Council.

TEST TIME

What Can You Do? Amid all this debate, experienced international meeting organ- izers say there are steps you can take today—or better, yester- day—to help international attendees. “While there are issues that need to be looked at, there is a lot of ground work that we, as show organizers, can do to make it easier for our customers to get visas and gain entry,” said Karen Chupka, senior vice pres- ident of events and conferences for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which organizes the gargantuan International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The first step is to recognize the importance of the globalmar-

ket and commit to spending time helping international attendees with visa issues. “It’s just the cost of doing business right now,”

International Relations

The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the International Consumer Electronics Show, and FIME all include invitation request forms as well as general informa- tion for international attendees on their web- sites. RSNA’s website includes these tips for successful visa applica- tions: Include a letter of invitation from the meeting organizer. When possible, provide proof of professional scien- tific and/or educational sta- tus, society membership, and/or meeting registration. Visa applicants are expected to provide evidence that they intend to return to their country of residence. Therefore, appli- cants should provide proof of binding or sufficient ties to their home country or permanent residence abroad. Visa applications are more likely to be successful if done in the visitor’s home country.

APPROVED

Applicants should present their entire trip itinerary, including travel to any countries other than the United States, at the time of their visa application.

But simply having a letter

“Applicants should be able to explain to the interviewing officer how attending a cer- tain trade showwill benefit their company or their professional development.”

of invitation in hand isn’t enough. “The U.S. consular officers evaluate the qualifi- cations of applicants them- selves and cannot issue visas based solely on their registration for an event— even a well-known event,” said Thomas Ramsey, non- immigrant visa chief at the U.S. embassy in Beijing. “One

tip for applicants is that they should be able to explain to the interviewing officer, clearly and in their own words, how attending a certain trade show will benefit their company or their professional development. There’s no right answer, but it helps when an officer can see that an applicant has thought through such issues.”

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said Steven Graham, associate executive director of the Hous- ton-basedOffshoreTechnologyConference, which attracts more than 78,000 attendees annually, including 20 percent from out- side the United States—many of them from non-VWP coun- tries.“We’d like to see things open up a bit to make it easier for people to participate, but we can’t just wait for that to happen.” BradMandell, executive director of FIME, an international

medical products show, agrees. “If it’s important to have inter- national attendees,” he said, “you have to dedicate the time.” About half of FIME’s 13,500 attendees come from outside the United States, including more than 600 from China and more than 500 from Brazil. Mandell has a staff person whose sole responsibility in the months prior to the show is helping inter-