An Interview with Krisam's New President
Invitations and Gifts to Impress VIPs
What's New in New York?
Where Do You Turn for Industry News & Help?
Around the Industry
Krisam & GEP News

Getting To Know You and What You Want
An interview with Jim Schultenover, president of the Krisam Group

When he was a junior in high school, he knew he wanted to go into the hotel business. Now he's been in it for 27 years. What focus! Currently Jim Schultenover, relatively new president of Krisam Group, is out getting to know his clients and his properties.

His first six months in office read like a baseball box score: 93 hotels interviewed (52 in person); 30 clients talked to face-to-face in three distinct metro areas; and more to come. He personally conducted focus groups in New York, Chicago, and Washington to learn what customers thought of Krisam.

Now, with his team, he's turning that learning into action as the company turns thirty years old. "We want to build on what has driven our success for that long," he says; Take a look at what he has learned about you and what Krisam will be working on.

Invitations and Gifts to Impress VIPs

If you have a super-elite group you need to send invitations to, or please with a gift, here are two highly personalized ideas that are bound to impress.

First the invitation. Good paper, classy design, quality envelope. They are a given. But, for the piece-de-resistance, how about a genuine, legal personalized postage stamp? Your logo, your meeting site, your cause, your president? For a limited time only, you can order legal tender stamps with your choice of illustration on them at Stamps.com

At the site you'll find a section on Business Solutions which suggests that the stamps also make good corporate gifts. This is a United States Postal Service test. The cost is a bit hefty: $16.99 plus shipping for 20 37-cent stamps (quantity discounts are available.) But, imagine the impact! Hurry - the test ends September 22nd. The more use it gets, the more likely, the service will continue.

Now the gift. If your list includes wine lovers, how about a bottle of fine wine personalized with their organization logo, or your own? You can order either personalized labels at about $140 for six bottles, or artistic, etched glass, for about $55 per bottle. Merlot, cabernet sauvignon, Chardonnay, sparkling, and non-alcoholic sparking are offered. Check out the possibilities at WineLabel.com.

Putting your organization's mark on these stamps or bottles is bound to impress recipients and please your executives. Putting your guest's mark on them might be even better.

What's New in New York?

An ever-popular event destination, good old New York is forever changing. To prove the point, representatives from the Empire Force DMC created a Jeopardy-style quiz show for attendees at the recent GEP summit in Madrid. Some of the answers were easier than others but all of them gave a bit of useful information to planners considering a visit to Manhattan. See how many of these you can answer:

1. What is soon to re-open that will house the largest modern art collection in the world?
2. Which new development complex offers upscale shopping, fine dining and world class entertainment all in one location?
3. What new two-wheel excursion will have your guests going in circles?
4. Which Krisam Group Hotel is undergoing a $120 million renovation?
5. What international competition, that would change the face of NYC, will be decided July 6th 2005?
6. NYC likes to be the biggest and the best! What new construction project raises us from No. 17 to No. 4?
7. Which New York sports franchise is determined to return to NYC from 'across the river'?
8. What's 'growing' in Ferry Point Park in The Bronx that will put a new swing in your activities?
9. Whose torch was again 'welcoming' as of August 3rd?
10. Name the reality television show that featured the highest event venue in New York City.

Question of the Month: Where Do You Turn for Industry News and Help?
 

Around the Industry

• Green Meetings. The Convention Industry Council (CIC) has issued the Green Meetings Report, a series of guidelines for simple cost effective ways to plan and host "green" meetings (PDF format).
• Corporate Marketers on Event Marketing. Face-to-face events continue to deliver the greatest return on investment over other customary marketing tools including advertising, according to an annual survey of U.S.-based corporate marketing executives conducted by The George P. Johnson Company and the MPI Foundation. Among the findings were: greater interest in using event marketing to increase product knowledge and brand preference; and marketing executives' tendency to turn to their ad agency partners, rather than event marketing agencies, for help in event marketing. Download the survey results (PDF format).
• Air and Hotel Meeting Planning. The Groups & Meetings Committee of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) released a white paper, Critical Meetings Components, which examines key considerations in planning air and hotel for groups and meetings. Each component is addressed from the perspective of a meeting planner and a supplier, so travel managers know what to expect, what to ask, and what steps to take as they plan meetings. Read the Critical Meetings Components white paper.
• Meeting Industry Trends. In a professional development session at the 2004 MPI World Education Congress in Denver, participants gave the following as the top ten trends in the meetings industry. The session was conducted by Eisenstodt & Associates, the Wray Group and LCI Communications.
  1. Technology
     a. General
     b. Face-to-Face Education vs. Virtual Methods
     c. Doing Business via the Internet
     d. Procurement
  2. Security - both Global and Homeland Security
  3. Procurement
  4. Smaller Budgets and Doing More with Less
  5. Building Relationships with the Executive
  6. Short Term Business
  7. Demographics
  8. Green Meetings
  9. Pharma Laws
  10. Need for more Effective Breakouts.
  Get more details on the latest meeting industry trends.
• Learn Spanish In-Flight. Virgin Atlantic now offers language learning courses as part of its inflight entertainment system.. The airline teamed up with Linguaphone on courses that teach passengers to understand and speak a new language by listening with no need for written material. The first offerings are Spanish for English speakers and English for Spanish speakers. They hope to expand the selection to include Chinese and Japanese on their Far East routes.

Krisam & GEP News
Updates on Krisam member properties & GEP partners.

Half Moon Montego Bay Withstands Hurricane Ivan.
Half Moon Montego Bay, Jamaica, has survived Hurricane Ivan with no structural damage and is open for business, Managing Director Richard Whitfield reports. The 419-room resort expected to be fully operational by September 14.

According to Whitfield, the celebration of the resort's 50th anniversary will proceed as planned for September 26th to October 3rd. "Half Moon has weathered many challenges in the last 50 years and we want to celebrate this achievement with our clients and industry partners."

Half Moon Montego Bay is a 400-acre luxury resort with 419 rooms, including suites, cottages and villas. In addition to luxurious accommodations, Half Moon also offers championship golf, an equestrian center, dolphin lagoon, 13 tennis courts, water sports, spa, fitness facilities and much more.

For more information on Half Moon Montego Bay, contact your Krisam representative or email newsletter@theeventinsider.com.

The Sanctuary Resort Opens at Kiawah Island.
Designed to look like a 19th century seaside mansion, The Sanctuary, an ultra-luxurious oceanfront resort, opened on Kiawah Island on August 20th. The 255-room, $125 million resort features some of the largest and most luxurious guestrooms in America, including a spectacular 3,100-square-foot Presidential Suite. Ninety percent of the rooms have ocean views.

The Sanctuary has two oceanfront restaurants: the Ocean Room, featuring New American cuisine, and Jasmine Porch, which serves regional favorites. There is also a casual seaside grill, two bars, seven boutique shops, more than 18,000 square feet of meeting space, a luxurious nature-based spa, and wireless Internet access all the way onto the beach.

"We are excited to introduce America's newest luxury vacation experience," says Prem Devadas, managing director of The Sanctuary. "The opening of The Sanctuary is the culmination of years of meticulous planning and design, as well as an uncompromising vision for excellence by our owner William H. Goodwin."

The Sanctuary provides access to the world-class amenities for which Kiawah has become renowned. This includes The Ocean Course (home of the 1991 Ryder Cup and host of the 2007 Senior PGA Championships), four other championship golf courses, two tennis clubs, and an extensive recreational and nature program.

Elite Traveler named The Sanctuary "Best New Resort." Other publications that had a sneak preview reported: "If Kiawah's Ocean Course is the jewel of the coast, The Sanctuary is now its crown," Travel & Leisure Golf; and "Just 30 minutes from downtown Charleston, S.C, a vast, rambling pleasure ground has risen Venus-like from the sea, putting all rivals to shame," the New York Daily News.

For more information on The Sanctuary Resort, contact your Krisam representative or email newsletter@theeventinsider.com.

Rio All-Suite Hotel Begins Major Conference Space Expansion.
The Rio All-Suite Hotel, & Casino Las Vegas, broke ground in June on a $39 million, 60,000 square foot expansion of its Pavilion Conference Center, which will bring the total space to 160,000 square feet. Set for completion in May 2005, the expansion will make the Rio the eighth largest hotel convention space in the country and enable the Rio to target and facilitate conferences of up to 3,000 attendees and 1,500 sleeping rooms. The Pavilion Convention Center can be arranged in 300 different configurations, from meeting breakout rooms to conferences, concerts and banquets.

The expansion is in response to the recent monumental growth in the convention industry in Las Vegas, which has seen attendance nearly double to 5.5 million delegates annually in the last five years. The Rio revenues have increased more than 250% in the past three years, a jump that is attributed to their award-winning customer service and state-of-the-art amenities. The conference center expansion is part of an $80 million renovation which also includes many of the hotel's public areas and restaurants.

For more information on The Rio All-Suite Hotel , contact your Krisam representative or email newsletter@theeventinsider.com.

Krisam and GEP partners figure prominently in Travel & Leisure 2004 Awards.
For the second consecutive year, Micato Safaris, a Global Events Partner covering Africa and India, has been named "World's Best Tour Operator & Safari Outfitter" in Travel & Leisure magazine's 2004 World's Best Awards. In the annual poll, readers are asked to name the top hotels, cities, islands, cruise lines, outfitters, airlines, and car-rental agencies. This year's results are based on 425,105 evaluations, the most comprehensive ever.

Named the top city for the seventh time was Sydney, Australia, served by GEP partner Destination Pacific Australia The two US cities in the top ten were New York, No. 6, and San Francisco, No. 9.

Travel & Leisure voters placed six Krisam properties in the list of the top 100 hotels in North America:

• Windsor Court, New Orleans, LA
• The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV
• Charleston Place, Charleston, SC
• Keswick Hall, Charlottesville, VA
• Boulders Resort & Golden Door Spa, Carefree, AZ
• Spring Creek Ranch, Jackson Hole, WY