<B> Meetings Beat</B>
<B>Madsearch Joins Online RFP Party</B>
Madsearch (www.madsearch.com), the year-old facility search engine, has joined the growing number of Web sites that offer electronic RFP capability (<I>Meetings Today</I>, Feb. 22). Unlike other such sites, Madsearch won't take a commission from hotels to which it sends business, doesn't make meeting buyers register in order to use it and allows planners to cut and paste their own RFPs into the system, if they choose, rather than use the existing form. Last month, its first in operation, about two dozen planners used the site to send out over 800 RFPs, said president Madeline Daryadal. Madsearch makes money by hosting Web pages for hotels, often including available dates and special rates.
<a name="2"><B>DuBois Fills In For Griffin At MPI</B>
Meeting Professionals International COO David DuBois is heading the organization's day-to-day operations temporarily as president and CEO Edwin Griffin recovers from a heart attack and bypass surgery. Griffin, who was stricken Feb. 14, is expected to make a full recovery, but no timetable has been set for his return.
<a name="3"><B>Delta Adds Individual Incentive Option</B>
Delta Airlines has reconfigured its "Win the World" individual incentive travel program to offer a less expensive certificate with an advance reservation requirement of 14 days, in addition to its existing seven-day advance reservation certificate. But it also now requires all incentive travel to include a Saturday night stay.
<a name="4"><B>CLC Standards Project On Track</B>
The Convention Liaison Council has received industry support--but not yet secured any funding--for the "Apex Project," a broad effort to standardize parts of the meeting negotiation process. About 80 percent of meeting professionals favor the development of common practices in the meetings, according to a feasibility study commissioned by CLC and conducted by Deloitte & Touche LLP of New York. The CLC committee hopes to have preliminary estimates of cost and a timeline by mid April, but its recommendations are still years away. For now, the group will develop business and financial plans and timelines, with the hope of eventually determining what practices, if any, to standardize. The Apex Project will look at standards for meeting and site profiles, terminology, meeting history and post-meeting reports, housing, RFPs/booking inquiries and other areas of the industry that require contracts, including transportation, attractions, convention centers, hotels, audiovisual suppliers, speakers and entertainment (<I>Meetings Today</I>, July 20, 1998).
<a name="5"><B>Planners To Aladdin: Hold The Slots</B>
The Aladdin Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, under construction for a spring 2000 opening, won't make meeting attendees stroll through the casino to get to their meeting space, a Vegas-hotel staple that has vexed some corporate planners. "We want to run the hotel in a way that can keep you separate from the leisure crowd and focused on why you're here," said COO Jim McKennon. Officials are meeting with focus groups of meeting buyers to garner input into building the hotel to meeting-friendly specifications.
<a name="6"><B>Dems To Crowd L.A. In Aug. 2000</B>
The Democratic National Committee last week selected Los Angeles as the site for its national convention, to be held Aug. 21-24, 2000. For planners, that doubtless will mean tight hotel and meeting space around those dates.