<B> Meetings Beat</B>
<B>CLC Studies Meetings Standards</B>
The Convention Liaison Council has commissioned consulting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP of New York City to conduct a study of the feasibility of establishing standard meeting industry practices (<I>Meetings Today,</I> July 20). The firm will survey planners and other industry figures and will issue a report and recommendations concerning which, if any, practices should be standardized, the standardization process that should be followed and any benefits standardization may bring to the industry.
The report will be issued at the CLC's next board of directors meeting in early November, said CLC executive vice president Francine Butler. "I don't expect us to come up with an all-encompassing answer, because I don't think there is one," Butler said. "But if we can get some sense of direction and steps that we can follow, then we can take this one project at a time and that might lend some contribution to our field."
<a name="art2"><B>Benchmark Inks Investment Pact</B>
Benchmark Hospitality, the Woodlands, Texas-based hotel and conference center management company has entered into an agreement with an investment firm to develop new conference centers in California and North Carolina.
Under the terms of the agreement, Redstone Capital of Houston, a merchant banking and financial services group, will purchase 10 percent equity in Benchmark with an option to purchase an additional 20 percent. The agreement creates a joint venture for new acquisitions and development. Redstone will provide the bulk of the capital, while Benchmark will manage the properties. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The joint venture's first investments will be a new conference resort in Napa Valley, Calif. and a new conference center at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, said Benchmark president Burt Cabanas. The company also is "discussing participation in an Asia fund for the purchase of undervalued assets, especially hotels and resorts that can be converted to conference hotels and conference resorts," he said. Benchmark now manages eight resorts and conference centers in the United States and one in Thailand.
<a name="art3"><B>Eisenstodt Sees Outsourcing Peak</B>
Meetings guru Joan Eisenstodt said the popularity of corporate outsourcing of meeting planning has begun to wane. "Outsourcing has become the way corporations look to save money and bring in expertise, but I think it's peaked," Eisenstodt said. "Employers want people who know the company and the corporate culture."
But planners who want to see their corporations outsource less need to demonstrate their worth to their employers, she said. "In-house planners need to make themselves invaluable, or at least appear to be invaluable."
Eisenstodt, president of Eisenstodt Associates of Washington, D.C., an independent conference consulting and management firm, made her remarks during a roundtable discussion at MeetingWorld. That event, held in July at the New York Hilton Hotel and Towers, drew nearly 50 percent more conference session attendees than in 1997.
<a name="art4"><B>Free Dallas Trade Show</B>
Meeting planners are welcome free to The Krisam Group and Premier Properties trade show, featuring more than 50 hotels, resorts, airlines and destination management companies, Sept. 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Hotel Inter-Continental in Dallas. For details, call (972) 458-8692.