JEN WELCH, CMP “[VENDORS IN INDIA]WANT TO SAY YES TO EVERYTHING, EVEN TO THINGS THEY CAN’T DO OR WILL UNDER-DELIVER. BUT THE CONVENTION CENTER ITSELF, THEIR TEAMWAS PHENOMENAL. THEY TRULY WILL GO TO THE END OF THE EARTH TO PLEASE YOU.”
to everything, even to things they can’t do orwill under-deliver.” On the other hand,Welch said that the teamat theHICCwas “phenomenal.” She added: “They truly will go to the end of the earth to please you.”
KnowWhat You Pay For—and How One major sticking point for North America–based planners bringing ameeting abroad has been covered previously inCon- vene, in the formof an ongoing InternationalMeetings column by James F. Hollan III, CAE. (See the latest entry in the series on p. 43.) It turns out that the same issue—having to pay for
From the Supplier Side
What are some emerging international meeting destinations? One good indicator might be where a major hotel company is focusing its development efforts.
Stephen Powell, senior vice president of worldwide sales for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), says that his company’s three most important emerging markets are China, India, and Brazil. In China, IHG has been the largest branded hotel company
for some time, according to Powell,while India and Brazil both are in much earlier phases of development. Recently IHG opened its first sales office in India,which Powell believes will prove to be “a major growth market” for IHG. Coming in third is Brazil, although Powell concedes that “we don’t have a well- developed strategy there.” He added: “What’s happening there, from natural resources to banking, it just seems that Brazil…is driving the commerce in the region, and so we’re following suit with that.” As for theMiddle East, “it is really hard to predict what’s
going on there,” Powell says. He agrees that the region has “cooled off” somewhat since the global recession took hold, but contends that occupancy levels are rising, due in part due to intra–Middle East travel.
In Powell’s role with IHG, he’s had plenty of opportunities to
witness how business gets done in these emerging destinations —and it’s very different from in the United States. “We Ameri- cans move quick and don’t even want to have a drink of water and a cup of coffee,” Powell said. “You have to slow down your pace.” It reminds him of “the early business of booking meet- ings” in the United States. Back then, he said, “You would never book a meeting without taking a client to dinner.” Similarly, at times when he’s been in India making sales calls, Powell said, “the first few times you meet with them you just drink tea. You talk and you get to know one another.” In China, the country’s hierarchical system makes things
even more complex. “I would meet with people at my level, my boss would meet with the people above me, and so forth,” Powell said. “Again, you have to drink a lot of tea. There must be maybe a few dinners, a few luncheons, and you talk about social things, but also at the right time talk about the commer- cial venture. Then you go into a negotiation stage which is more protracted than in any place I’ve found in the world.”
meeting space, nomatter howlarge your roomblock—rears its head in emerging internationalmeeting destinations aswell. “InSouthAmerica,wetendtopayforconferencerooms,”Hol-
land said. “Overseas, [at]most hotels you buy a per-person, per- daymeeting package,with a coffee break in themorning and the afternoon and lunch. There’s notmuch roomto negotiate.” Contracts are also different. Alejandra Cumbrera, CMP, a
planner with ELA Connection, a New York City–based cor- porate event-planning agency she co-founded, has organized a number of conferences forTheEconomistmagazine inBrazil. Contracts in South America in general, and Brazil in particu-