Professional meeting directors organize more than 30 business meetings in a good year. They evaluate cities and hotels for a living, usually in faraway places. They travel all the time. They inspect restaurants and meeting venues, analyze transportation logistics, consult with exhibition contractors, and recommend entertainment and activities.
It sounds exotic, but on a good day they’re as busy as Hudson the butler on “Upstairs, Downstairs.” On a bad day, they play Jeeves to a client’s Wooster.
They display an astonishing command of the most arcane details of travel logistics, airline schedules, meal planning, hotel reservations, airports, and ground transportation. Think of the most Martha Stewartesque wedding planner you’ve ever met, and then multiply the level of expertise by three.
Meet Josiane Emorine.
Josiane Emorine
A meeting director for World Meetings Plus, she’s the person who –- to pick one arcane detail — ensures availability of German-speaking physicians in Bangalore for medical emergencies that may or may not take place at a meeting of European customers scheduled for a week from now. I met Josiane when she was planning hospitality for the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
Josiane grew up in the Burgundy region in France, lives in San Francisco, and has supported companies like IBM, Lenovo, Lexmark, Ortho McNeil and Ryerson for 15 years. At the risk of oversimplifying her diplomatic approach, Josiane starts by asking three questions: Who’s Coming? What Story Are You Going to Tell? And, What’s the Budget?
Who’s Coming?
“Who’s coming? That’s the most important thing to understand,” Josiane says. “Are they customers or employees? Are they engineers, sales people, journalists, investors, analysts, executives? Are guests coming with them? Once you’ve determined that, and determined where they’re coming from, you’ve filled in most of the equation.”
Everyone in business is busy, but customers have even more restrictions on their time. Ethics and financial accounting rules in many countries, including the USA, most of Europe, Japan and China, mean that they cannot accept travel without demonstrating business value. This sets requirements for meeting length, content, and location. Business travelers usually want to confine air travel to a half-day or less, with one connection or less, and that usually means a European meeting for European customers, a meeting in North America for North American customers, and so on.
“Executives also have less time, and because they’re always traveling anyway, their standards are higher. Long restaurant dinners away from the hotel don’t work, because they need to be back in their room for teleconference calls. Engineers and researchers tend to be more easy-going, but they’re very attentive to schedule and detail.”
What’s the Story?
“If the purpose of the meeting is purely to build business relationships and to transfer information face-to-face, you need self-contained, well-equipped, business-oriented hotels in cities near the participants’ origination point,” Josiane says.
On the other hand, if the meeting objective is to recognize high-performing employees, it prescribes attractive cities or resorts with more entertainment options, possibly farther away.
“Bora Bora would be a lovely place for a recognition event,” Josiane says. “But the complications of getting there mean it doesn’t happen very often.”
What’s the Budget?
“I usually manage 30 to 35 meetings a year,” Josiane says. “This is an unusual year, and I’ll probably do 15. The current economy means budget is extremely important for all meetings, and many have been postponed or canceled this year. Nobody is doing ‘whatever it costs’ meetings. Top-brand hotels — I don’t want to name them — now talk about price. They’re willing to negotiate.”
Meetings on a tight budget gravitate toward specific cities in more affordable countries. In Europe, meetings can usually take place in Spain and Portugal more affordably than in Italy or France. Barcelona and Lisbon are affordable, accessible, and attractive. In the United States, hotel inventory in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas and Orlando — along with easy airline connections — attract meetings. In Asia, Bangalore, Singapore and Shanghai combine accessibility and airline connections with reliable, affordable on-site resources.
“London and Paris and Rome are popular cities for meetings, but they’re expensive cities for hotels,” Josiane says. “If one of my clients is determined to conduct a meeting in Rome, they either need a big hotel budget or they need to pick a property outside the city. Budget is another reason why determining the audience is so important. People who travel less frequently will welcome an unusual choice of city or hotel, where the selection is more affordable. They might like going to Dubrovnik or Amalfi, and they don’t mind spending more time on a motorcoach to get to their destination.”
How does Josiane pick her own hotel?
What does a meeting director like Josiane Emorine, who travels to faraway places for a living, do on holiday? Does she still enjoy hotels and surprise fruit baskets and tropical drinks with tiny umbrellas?
“I like hotels where values and standards and behavior start at the top. That’s dependent on management, not on hotel size or brand or sometimes even rates. I remember a huge event at the Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver where the general manager had distinctive values and rules, and he could never walk anywhere without tidying something up. He loved the place, and conveyed this to everybody who worked and stayed there. I managed several events at the Hotel Lancaster in Torino in 2006. It’s a family hotel run by two sisters, and even though the conference rooms might have been a little small, the staff created brilliant solutions to make it work. Room service, for example, comes from an excellent trattoria around the corner.
“I’m not sure there’s a single brand of hotel that’s consistently high quality worldwide,” Josiane says. “There are specific hotels in expensive brands where the service is less than friendly. I have more luck with independent hotels loosely affiliated into an association, like Preferred Hotels & Resorts, Leading Hotels of the World, or Relais & Chateaux.
“One way to pick a hotel is to call the concierge desk and ask a lot of questions. I’m very social and I like people who smile a lot. If they really enjoy their job, you can tell.”
Josiane Emorine is reachable at josiane@wmplus.net
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
‘Hats off ‘ to you, Josianne, for an excellent presentation.
Anthony Job
Kochi, India
As part of IBM and now Lenovo I had the pleasure of working with World Meetings Plus and Josiane. A great events team and event planner such as Josiane can make even an average property or event shine.
Sam Dusi
Morrisville, North Carolina, USA