ALEJANDRA CUMBRERA, CMP “IF IT’S AN INTERNATIONAL CHAIN [HOTEL], EVERYTHING IS MORE STANDARD. WITH LOCAL PLACES, SOMETIMES YOU WON’T EVEN SEE CONTRACTS. SOMETIMES CONTRACTS ARE MORE CASUAL, TWO PAGES LONG.”

lar, can varywidely, Cumbrera said, depending onwhomyou areworkingwith. “If it’s an international chain [hotel], every- thing is more standard,” Cumbrera said. “With local places, sometimes you won’t even see contracts. Sometimes contracts are more casual, two pages long.” She also doesn’t often see attrition or cancellation clauses. Holland,meanwhile, typically writes his own contracts—

which “98 percent” ofU.S. hotelswill accept.Not so in South America or overseas. “We can certainly get some provisions in there,” Holland said, “but not nearly as much as we have in theU.S.”Cumbrera agrees: “I always push asmuch as I can. Sometimes you can’t change thewhole clause, but you can add a phrase here and there.”

Allowfor Customs Issues This past year, LizzaCataluno,CCEP, a conference planner for the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, organized a four-day educational conference in São Paulo.Her biggest chal- lenge? “Actually getting ourmaterials there.”Cataluno added: “This year in particular, our materials never made it, and we ended up just trashing them. It would have cost too much to send back.”Worse, she says that it’s “really hit-or-miss” as to whether customs will hold up a particular shipment. Thus, Cataluno recommends either working with a local

customs broker, whose job it is to expedite and facilitate the flowof shipped goods through customs, or sending yourmate- rials directly to the hotel ormeeting venue, assuming that facil- ity has an import license. Holland says thatRMMLF essentially has given up on try-

ing to ship things to SouthAmerica; even using a broker, ship- ments still get held up in customs. Instead, he opts to print materials locally. “I’ve had boxes that I’ve basically aban- doned,”Holland said, “just because even though Iwas organ- izing a conference of lawyers, even they couldn’t push them through customs, and basically said, ‘Forget about them.’”

Remember: Safety First “Traveling internationally is always a concern,”Welch said. Even though she says she’s never felt unsafe in Hyderabad— the HICC and its attached Novotel hotel are in a large, gated complexwhere security staff check cars and trucks upon enter- ing the area—BIO still thought it prudent to put together an

70 pcma convene September 2011

emergencyplan. She and theBIOIndia teamworkedwith a con- tact at theAmerican Embassy inNewDelhi, aswell as theU.S. Consulate in Hyderabad. Those agencies provided them with information regarding hospitals, whomto contact in an emer- gency, and so on. BIOalso encouraged staff and attendees to sign upwith the

U.S. State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), athttps://travelregistration.state.gov. STEP is a free service that, in the event of a crisis in the area, sends registrants information via textmessage and email about what’s happen- ing andwhat they should do. South of the border, Cumbrera is of the opinion that South

American cities aren’t really all that different fromother places. “I always recommend that people do notwear jewelry, that they take a cab, and arrange for ground transportation,” she said. “But I think that applies tomany,many cities.” Holland agrees that public safety in emerging destinations is

a bit of mixed bag, noting that the foreign liability insurance policies he has taken out have included coverage for kidnapping in Istanbul but not Brazil. On the other hand, when RMMLF went to Venezuela, the group’s hosts insisted on driving them around in carswith guards. As for theMiddle East,HIMSS’s first conference location in

the region,Bahrain, had been viewed as a relatively stable coun- try. But when violence associated with the “Arab Spring” pop- ularuprisings spreadthere earlier this year,Ryansaid,“thatwas quite surprising to us, givenwhatwe’d seen of the country.” Yet for the most part, Ryan says that terrorism and politi-

cal unrest haven’t been something that her association has been overly concerned about. “That’s the misconception people have,” she said. “You hear ‘Middle East’ and you think about wars, Al-Qaeda, and etc.—those shouldn’t be the first things people think about.” Ryan’s own opinions have changed. Prior toHIMSSMiddle

East, she never hadmuch interest in the region. But no longer. “You can’t lump all those countries in together andmake one judgment about all of them,” she said. “The people there are amazing and kind, and the culture is incredible to learn about. Theyhave fantasticdestinations, fromcities todeserts tobeaches —they’ve kind of got it all.”

Hunter R. Slaton is a senior editor of Convene. www.pcma.org