SUBLIME SETTING: The all-inclusive Le Blanc Spa Resort, located on a white-sand
beach overlooking the Caribbean Sea, makes a one-of-a-kind special-event venue.
In2009, about100
optometrists, 50 spouses, and 80 vendors attended the event at Le Blanc, a 260-room, all-adult Palace Resorts property, in Cancun. They plan to return in 2012. “The consistency of the service level at Le Blanc was better
than I’ve seen elsewhere in Mexico—or anywhere else, for that matter,” Hults said. “In fact, it was so obvious that LensCrafters speakers whose topic was customer service pointed to Le Blanc as an example ofhowgood service can be. Plus, the facilities are great and the food is fantastic.” Jody Gold, director of operations for the American Med-
ical Society for Sports Medicine, enjoyed the same high level of service for her 2010 meeting, which brought more than 800 U.S. physicians to the 426-room Hilton Cancun Golf&Spa Resort. “Our group essentially bought out the property for a week,” she said. “We loved the ambience of the hotel and got a lot for our dollar in F&B. And the staff really catered to us; they were there for our every need. They made it a great expe- rience for everyone.” Ditto for Johnnie C.White,CMP, executive director of meet-
ings and educational services for the Cardiovascular Research Foundation. He has planned meetings—ranging from board meetings to a recent conference held in conjunction with an inter- national cardiology organization for 1,500 to 2,000 attendees —at several Cancun hotels. “The customer service is definitely there,” he said. “They are on your side and constantly trying to find a win-win for you and your meeting.”
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Advanced Infrastructure Atop priority for White’s group, no matter where they meet, he said, is “the ability to get phone service and get online.” Good connectivity is an expectation shared by practically every con- vention audience, and it’s a concern that planners can cross off their list when they bring their group to Cancun. Fernando Cervantes, director of groups and conventions for
Cancun CVB, said that the 20-plus Cancun convention hotels, the 700,000-square-foot Cancun Convention Center, and the new Cancun Messe Exhibition Center are all state-of-the-art, supporting cell phones andWi-Fi without difficulty.With 80 percent of Cancun’s hotels in the five-star and/or five-diamond category, Cervantes said, “that really shouldn’t be surprising.” A few properties even include international calls to the United States from guest rooms in their rates. Gold,who brought her usual in-houseAVperson to Cancun,
said they “worked with a local AV supplier and the Hilton did a fabulous job.” Carla R. Maul, CCP, who plans a meeting for the Ameri-
can Society of Extracorporeal Technology, finds AVprices par- ticularly reasonable. The four-day, three-night Perfusion Safety and Best Practices conference has been held in Cancun in the fall for the last 10 years. Her AV costs for the conference, includ- ing a karaoke social night, were about $4,000 last year, she said. In addition to an impressive number and variety of sleep- ing rooms, meeting and breakout spaces, andF&Bvalues, Can-