Disney's Aguel To Focus MPI On Distributing Education

Meeting Professionals International is poised to rebound strongly from a difficult year, with incoming chairman of the board George Aguel focused on both developing the skills of individual members and helping them to document their worth to their organizations.

For MPI, 2001 was marked by fundraising challenges, lack of membership growth and softer annual conference attendance—all due primarily to the meeting industry's particularly tough going in an economic recession.

Aguel, senior vice president of Lake Buena Vista, Fla.-based Walt Disney World Parks & Resorts, said that during his one-year term as chairman, which begins next week at MPI's annual World Education Congress in Toronto, he intends to direct increased resources to chapters and continue the growth of the association's multicultural and women's leadership initiatives. Perhaps the most immediate action the association will take is to renew its focus on documenting the return on investing in meeting management. "Despite all the recognition of the impact of ROI, it just hasn't gelled," Aguel said. "MPI can take the lead there." MPI always has stressed the importance of documenting and proving ROI. Last year, the MPI Foundation and the association's Corporate Circle of Excellence developed a tool to benchmark attendee and management satisfaction for a particular event (Meetings Today, Feb. 26, 2001). Yet, at a time when it is arguably most important for meeting managers to prove their worth, Aguel noted too many are not doing so.

"Why aren't all these planners embracing this with enormous fervor? Old habits die hard," Aguel said. "When there was prosperity, there weren't any questions. As long as things ran smoothly and the rooms were there and the food was hot, you were cool. Now that's being challenged." Aguel said MPI is developing ways to address the issue. "It's a leap we must invest in, and there's more to it coming up," he said.

MPI also will direct resources to the chapter level, deploying chapter operation specialists into the field to meet face to face with chapter membership. There also will be more educational programming and tools, Aguel said. The association also has revived its intermittent Platinum Series of educational modules directed at chapters, with the centerpiece a seminar based on the leadership principles of the Disney Institute, the company's corporate group-focused professional development organization.

Aguel, who heads group and meeting sales for all Disney-branded Florida-based entities, including the company's theme parks, hotels, the Institute and the Disney Cruise Line, said business slowed in the wake of Sept. 11, but is recovering, though it has led the company to employ slightly modified strategies.

"It's significantly better, and our volume is returning in smaller, shorter-term form, even though most who thought the rebound would be in 2002 now look to 2003," Aguel said. "But there are so many groups that have yet to visit Walt Disney World that we're always able to find new opportunities."

Aguel, who succeeds hotel sales and marketing director Jerry Wayne as MPI chairman, said his moves to push educational tools out to MPI's members through its chapters are necessary in a climate in which corporations are slashing meetings and demanding value from their meeting managers. "Sometimes it takes a wakeup call, and this one began even before Sept. 11," Aguel said. "Though the downturn is temporary, the benefits for the meeting and conference industry are not and will stick with us for a long time."