Eliminate Five Pain Points of Planning Meetings and Locations

When beginning the planning process of any meeting or event, there are many variables to identify. What is the most advantageous location? How much will it cost? What environmental impact will the event have?

More than ever before meeting planners, travel managers and meeting owners need an easy-to-use, intelligent tool that helps eliminate the guess work from planning meetings and events.

Today, we’re introducing Meeting Locator to help address this pain point. Part of the Active Network | StarCite Strategic Meetings Management solution, Meeting Locator uses a patent-pending algorithm that searches an up-to-the-minute, aggregated travel database from our partner, Carson Wagonlit Travel, combined with StarCite’s sophisticated meeting spend platform.

Here’s how Meeting Locator eliminates five key pain points in the meeting planning process:

1. Research and evaluate meeting locations: By leveraging a patent-pending algorithm, Meeting Locator reviews recommendations based on various criteria including traveler and delegate locations, current airfares and hotel sleeping room rates, telepresence options, and CO2 emissions.
2. Review and evaluate travel data: Eliminate the tedious process of researching, gathering, and sifting through loads of disparate travel data. Everything is available via Meeting Locator, saving you time and money.
3. Expedite the approvals process: Incorporated into the approvals workflow, you can use Meeting Locator to evaluate, forecast and make decisions about meetings and events, quickly and easily.
4. Communicate the value of your meetings: Use Meeting Locator to leverage historical travel and cost data and provide more accurate information about the true cost of your future meetings.
5. Reduce carbon footprint: Using Meeting Locator, you can select your meeting location based on its carbon emissions count or available telepresence options. Meeting locator is a great tool to help promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) as part of your meeting or event program.

What are your pain points in the meeting planning process? Share with us below.

Meeting Locator Resources:

• Meeting Locator data sheet
• Meeting Locator information
• Meeting Locator press release

Betty McNulty is a General Manager for Active Network | StarCite, part of  Active Network, Business Solutions. With significant experience in the meeting and event planning industry, she is also a strong advocate for the globalization and adoption of Strategic Meetings Management programs for Active Network| StarCite clients worldwide.

Written By: Betty McNulty

5 Simple, Sure Fire Ways to Green Your Event and Cut Costs

The meeting and events industry has come a long way from the fuel guzzling, wasteful, and spend-happy industry it once was. Sustainable events and cost-cutting now go hand in hand, so consider these 5 simple, and sure fire ways to reduce the environmental impact of your event and cut your overall event-spend.

1.       Get a mobile app for your event: Cut down on the paper content and wastage at your event by providing your event content in a mobile ready format that attendees can download and access on their mobile devices. This saves attendees the hassle of lugging around programs, brochures and documents, and it can save you significantly on the cost and resources involved in printing the materials as well as recycling or disposing of the material post-show.

2.       Choose the right meeting location: Start thinking about the environmental impacts of your meeting or event location at the earliest stages of your meeting or event planning. Consider the location of your event and how sustainable that city or country is and the cost of transport and accommodation there. There are now tools available to help you calculate the distance delegates have to travel to get to your event destination and the carbon emissions incurred as part of their travel. By choosing the optimal destination for your next meeting or event you can save significantly while being kinder to the environment.

3.       Educate all stakeholders: Incorporate sustainability as part of your overall event strategy. Promote a more sustainable event as part of your marketing and communications plan so attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and event organizers are engaged and informed about it before, during and after the event takes place. By engaging all parties in your sustainability efforts you will be in a much better position to achieve your sustainability and bottom line goals.

4.       Recycle event signage or go digital: Consider designing event signage and materials with a life span of more than one year.  Reuse your signage from year to year or consider going digital with all of it. You’ll save on printing and design costs in the long run and reduce your wastage significantly. 

5.       Eliminate one time use products: Reduce waste at your event by eliminating one time use products such as plastic bottles, coffee cups, giveaways and signage. Provide water refill stations and encourage all event attendees and suppliers to reuse and recycle. For tradeshows and large conferences consider re-usable water bottles, and bags and gifts as part of your conference pack.

Going green with your event should not be a costly endeavor. It actually goes hand in hand with effective cost-cutting. The key to achieving both in tandem is the correct  forward planning and incorporating sustainability as a fundamental part of your event from the outset.

What steps are you taking to promote sustainability at your event and to achieve cost savings?

Written By: Irene Coghlan

Making your events more sustainable

Happy Earth Day!

Today, and every April 22^nd, is Earth Day. Over 40 years ago, the concept was developed to create awareness and appreciation for our environment. Since then, it has been celebrated by communities all over the world.

Sustainability has become a common theme in all types of businesses. As the economy begins its recovery, sustainable measures are moving from the backburner to the forefront once again. Companies can again begin to focus on adopting new technologies to help them eliminate excess (and cost). For example, a lot of airline miles are disappearing in favor of web conferencing and virtual event platforms.

What are you doing to make your events more sustainable? Whether your event is a six-person seminar or a full-scale conference, there are some easy things you can do to reduce the environmental impact of your events.

Active Network has been working with Shirley Click, managing director of CT-Live, which focuses on creating sustainable events that “won’t cost the earth.” Regarding online registration:

“We use a range of techniques to lower the footprint of our events, and Active Network, Events helps us through the use of its online registration system, which means we can ensure our whole invitation process is electronic rather than paper-based…Not only do online registration systems offer advantages in terms of efficiency, speed and accessibility, but they also have a sustainability angle as well.”

Your events can be go green with a few small changes here and there. If you have questions about how to make yours more sustainable, send us an e-note. We would love to help!

Let this Earth Day be the start of a more sustainable planet.

Written By: Michelle Nikolayevsky

Earth Day: Make Your Meetings Greener

Guest Post By:
Marina Antestenis, Marketing Manager
Active Network | Events

Tomorrow marks the 41st Earth Day Celebration! As such, a fundamental part of responsible environmental management is monitoring and reducing the carbon footprint of the events we manage. So how can you reduce the carbon footprint at your events?

There are wide ranges of initiatives that can be put into place to reduce an events carbon footprint, below are just a few ways, for more ideas check out our recent white paper.

Use paperless technology to manage and market your event.
Web-based registration and attendee management solutions are making it easier to manage any type of event online in a paperless environment. Take registrations online, send automatic emails to follow up and share reports digitally through a web link.

You can also market your event digitally through social media channels and emails. Email is, in most cases, more effective and less expensive than paper mailers, and even the most traditional event organizers are moving quickly to email technology to cut costs while reducing their environmental footprint. At a recent RegOnline users event, less than 10 percent of the room reported using direct mail.

Stay close.
One of the biggest carbon impacts comes from people traveling to/from the event followed by energy use at the event and waste production. If you have events that force your attendees to travel long distances, consider having more regional events that only require air travel for a few of your staff members. You can also try to arrange for the venue to be on or near a train stop to ease travel for attendees at your events. And if you have a large event, book all your sessions close enough that people can walk from venue to venue.

Choose a green hotel and vendors
Before you select a hotel and other vendors for your event, take the time to understand their commitment to the environment. For instance, make sure your hotel and venue are committed to green policies, including recycling and energy conservation. Consider hiring a green caterer. Many caterers are adopting green business practices, which include everything from cooking with seasonal and local vegetables to using recycled and compostable materials.

Go digital.
One of the most expensive, and environmentally impactful, pieces of an event is the stacks of hand outs that organizers and presenters print for attendees. Some organizations provide it on their web sites so attendees can review it online – or pick what information they would like to print.

Reuse. And Recycle.
When choosing materials for your conferences and meetings, focus on using materials that can be reused or recycled. For example, The CERES Conference used binders that featured 60 percent post-consumer paper content in the frame and 39 percent post-consumer steel in the rings. Plus, the conference printed its brochures with soy ink on recycled paper.

The best way to guarantee a greener event is to share your knowledge with others. Please pass along any tips you may have in the comments.

Written By: Michelle Nikolayevsky