Las Vegas is more than casinos and shows; it’s also a great place to conduct business (such as the upcoming WEC). That is why the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is working on a $2.5 billion Las Vegas Global Business District.

The LVCVA plans to roll out the district in three stages: major renovations to the Las Vegas Convention Center, leveraging the World Trade Center designation and creating transportation connectivity via a centralized hub.

Concerning the 54-year-old convention center, upgrades will include additional exhibit space, meeting rooms and general session space, as well as upgrades to technology, F&B options and more lobby space. There will be outdoor public gathering spaces, too. 

The Las Vegas Convention Center is also a designated World Trade Center, and the LVCVA plans to leverage that designation by marketing the city to international travelers by building a dedicated World Trade Center facility—in addition to the convention center.

The transportation plan will focus on improved connections in the resort corridor, and the LVCVA is working with local stakeholders on a long-term strategy. 

“I truly believe this is a transformative project,” said Rossi Ralenkotter, LVCVA president/CEO. “Las Vegas is known for defining moments that change the hospitality industry, and this project will be the next defining moment. This is more than a project, this is a vision that will launch Las Vegas forward ahead of the competition for decades to come.”

How excited are you about the upcoming business district? Please let us know in the comments.

I'll admit that I'm not a dedicated LinkedIn user. I prefer Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. LinkedIn is last on my list of social media destinations. However, that may all change because of Richard Branson. He's been recently contributing articles about productivity and business. They're great, short reads, and I encourage you to check them out (along with all the other entries by thought leaders). 

His most recent one really caught my eye. It's called "Top 6 Tips to Screw Business Meetings as Usual" (I love the inciting headline). For those on the cutting-edge of meeting design, these tips will be familiar. For those who haven't thought about how to change up the same-old same-old, I thought I'd share the tips with you here: 

1. Step away from the usual weekly agenda and set an inspiring theme. 

2. Bring together a diverse mix people to broaden discussion.

3. Engage thought-provoking speakers to spark ideas and generate debate.

4. A great destination—lose the laptops and say bye to the tie.

5. Surprise the group with something special.

6. Ban slide presentations!

For Branson's thoughts about each tip, check out the article at LinkedIn. And please let us know in the comments which tip is your favorite and why. 

When the first edition of IMEX America opens its doors at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas on Oct.11, 2011, the trade show will be the largest this year—and the biggest U.S. hosted buyer event ever—to address the business, networking and educational needs of the U.S. meeting, incentive travel and event industry.

“We have spent almost two years communicating why the IMEX business model is different and precisely how and why it will benefit the meetings industry in the U.S. Business is at the heart of everything we do and the reason why we launched IMEX America in the first place. We believed that the U.S. needed a fresh trade show format, and I have every confidence that IMEX America will now deliver—on business volumes, buyer quality and numbers and exhibitor numbers and diversity,” said IMEX Chairman Ray Bloom. “What is more, with the help of our strategic partner and premier education provider, Meeting Professionals International, our education program is second to none. With unparalleled industry support, we’ve also been able to deliver an extraordinary 14 co-located trade association events. I’m confident that the sum of the parts is going to be greater than the whole, and I urge everyone in the meetings, events and incentive travel to come to Vegas and experience ‘the IMEX effect’ on their business goals for themselves."

Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of MPI, says the association is excited to see IMEX come to life in Las Vegas. 

“We look forward to connecting with thousands of professionals through our innovative education programs and keynotes each day," MacMillan said. "We’re confident that attendees will find inspiring ideas they can act on at the show and throughout their careers—which is exactly the remarkable professional development MPI consistently delivers.”

There are currently more than 1,800 exhibitors representing 100 countries now affirmed and more than 90 live educational events confirmed.

Lynette Mong of the Omnivoracious blog interviews Al Pittampalli about his new book “Read this Before Our Next Meeting.” Some of the points he makes in his book:

• “We have too many meetings.”
• “We have too many bad meetings.”
• “Traditional meetings create a culture of compromise.” (The wrong people or too many people leads to inability to act or decide.) 
• “Traditional meetings kill our sense of urgency... Regularly interrupting the day to bring our best minds together to focus on the urgent makes it impossible for these people to spend their focused energy on what’s actually important.”

He defines what a meeting is and isn’t. His premise is to stop wasting everyone’s time with ineffective meetings and to rethink meetings and how you perceive meetings. He states, "the quality of your meetings is the quality of your organization."

Do you see these things happening in your organization? What have you done to optimize meetings? 

The EEAA (Exhibition & Event Association of Australasia) Leaders Forum, held recently on Queensland’s Gold Coast, explored the impact of new technologies on the exhibition sector and how this will affect the evolution of the industry in the next 10 years.

Forty industry leaders took the opportunity to examine the exhibition sector’s recent performance and collaborate on future directions. Participants included CEOs and general managers from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin convention centers; leading organizers Reed Exhibitions, Diversified, ETF and AEC; and major suppliers including Moreton Hire, InfoSalons, Agility and ExpoNet.

Despite technology innovations and the explosion of social media, the industry leaders unanimously agreed that exhibitions will remain relevant and powerful, as the only marketing channel to offer a flexible face-to-face buying experience.

“However, exhibitions will still need to deliver an outstanding experience for their stakeholders – and utilizing technology and personal portable devices to complement the offering will be a key success driver,” said Joyce DiMascio, general manager, EEAA. “For every show, every exhibition, every event it is crucial that organizers, suppliers and venues collaborate to create experiences that drive exhibitor participation and visitor attendance. The exhibition must be delivered as an experience that can’t be experienced elsewhere – especially online.”

Exhibitions also proved to be resilient during the recent global financial downturn. While many marketing budgets were cut, research from CEIR (Center for Exhibition Industry Research) showed companies recognized that exhibitions remained a cost-effective way of reaching key decision-makers.

“Our challenge will be to continue to provide a compelling story to encourage exhibition participation by communicating the benefits of exhibitions as an integral part of any marketing plan – and a unique way of reaching a qualified target audience,” DiMascio said.

Sandra Chipchase has resigned as CEO of the Melbourne Convention + Visitors Bureau (MCVB) in Australia and will take a position as CEO of Destination NSW.

“Sandra has given us five years of exceptional service, and we should all be pleased for her as she takes the next big step in her career,” said Chris Barlow, MCVB chairman. “During her tenure, Sandra has achieved some outstanding results for Melbourne, the most recent of which were recognized in April with two national Meetings and Events Australia (MEA) Hall of Fame inductions for ‘Destination Marketing Organisation’ and ‘Exhibition of the Year’ for the Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME). Sandra was also acknowledged with the National MEA Outstanding Contribution to Industry Award at the same event. On behalf of the Board, I thank Sandra for her tremendous contribution to Melbourne and Victoria and her assistance in effecting a smooth transition.”

Destination NSW is the state government's new events and tourism marketing authority for New South Wales. 

For the last 10 years, and in fact ever since the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) first started to collect data on international association meetings, the U.S. has always been the No. 1 country measured by number of meetings organized per year.

With 623 meetings in 2010, the U.S. is by far the No. 1 country measured by number of meetings organised in 2010, followed by European countries as Germany (542 meetings in 2010), Spain (451 meetings), United Kingdom (399) and France (371).

However, in the last 10 years the market share of U.S. meetings in the ICCA database has dropped from 9.1 percent in 2001 to 6.8 percent in 2010. In the last year alone, the gap between the U.S. and Germany, No. 2 country since 2004, shrunk from 137 meetings in 2009 to 81 meetings in 2010.

The ICCA city ranking shows that U.S. cities are ranked relatively low in the worldwide charts.

This reflects the fact that very few destination marketing organizations in the U.S. are proactively targeting this sector. The strong national rankings is primarily due to two factors: the sheer size of the U.S. economy and the large numbers of U.S. volunteer leaders in leadership positions within their associations who are launching successful bids.

This means that U.S. cities have an opportunity to make huge progress in the growing market of international association business, if they decide to proactively focus on this sector.

Despite economic turbulence, the number of international association meetings continues to increase significantly. This year, ICCA Data researchers have identified 9,120 events that took place in 2010, 826 events more than were identified last year and an all-time record. Partly, this reflects the strength of the association meetings market despite the recent economic downturn; partly, it is thanks to a record number of ICCA members sending in their calendar information to help identify new events.

“Some of this significant increase in numbers of association meetings in 2010 is certainly due to our continued investment in research and the great feedback from ICCA members, but it seems clear to me that we’re in the midst of an extended period of astonishing dynamism: 2009 and 2008 were similarly buoyant in terms of new association event creation," said Martin Sirk, ICCA CEO. "This has been driven by the acceleration of new scientific and technological developments and the need to discuss these complex changes face-to-face. Anyone who wants to understand what the Information Revolution really looks like just needs to consider how the international association meetings sector is evolving.” 

The ICCA rankings cover meetings organized by international associations that take place on a regular basis and which rotate between a minimum of three countries. The data represents a snapshot of qualifying events in the ICCA Association Database as sampled on  May 9, 2011. 

ICCA is now working on the details behind these results. The full ICCA statistics report for 2010 will be released end of June. 

Northstar Travel Media, a business-to-business information company serving the travel and meetings industries, has acquired PhoCusWright Inc., a global travel, tourism and hospitality research and event business.

PhoCusWright was founded by Philip Wolf in 1994, as the secular shift of online travel sales, marketing and distribution was unfolding. Wolf is an authority on the impact of technology on the travel industry and speaks frequently at events around the world. He will continue as chairman of PhoCusWright Inc. The company becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Northstar Travel Media LLC.

Northstar Travel Media serves the retail travel, meetings and conventions, corporate travel management and incentive markets with leadership brands including Travel Weekly, TravelAge West, Meetings & Conventions, Successful Meetings, Meeting News, Business Travel News, Procurement.travel, and Incentive; database-driven electronic publications Hotel & Travel Index, Official Cruise Guide and M&C Facilities Search; and online subscription services The Beat, Travel42, Weissmann Reports, Intelliguide Corporate, BTP24 and Star Service Online. The company also produces more than 20 face-to-face events in the served markets of retail travel, corporate travel and the meetings industry.

“The addition of PhoCusWright provides Northstar with leadership in the fastest-growing segment of travel, tourism and hospitality: the convergence of digital technology and the travel industry,” said Thomas Kemp, chairman and CEO of Northstar Travel Media. “We’re very pleased that Philip and his talented team will be working in partnership with us to grow PhoCusWright’s event and research business through marketing and content synergies with Northstar.”

“After 17 years at the helm, joining Northstar represents an ideal next step," Wolf said. "Integrated smart marketing, targeted investments and more manpower will help us achieve significant new things for our clients.”

This is the fifth acquisition that Northstar has announced in the last 18 months. Last year, the company acquired the Nielsen Travel Group, the Home-Based Travel Agent trade shows and ProMedia.Travel. Earlier this year, Northstar acquired the assets of the online information site, LuxuryTravel 360.

“We are actively investing in our business through organic initiatives and acquisitions that strengthen our position in core markets,” Kemp said. “PhoCusWright is strategically important to Northstar, particularly in growing proprietary paid information and face-to-face events."

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

For the fifth time, the International Association of Professional Congress Organisers (IAPCO) has revealed its members’ annual survey indicating a slow recovery of the economy worldwide. The 110 members gave their final numbers for 2010, showing an important increase in the number of international meetings that they have been commissioned to organize, while it is noted that national conferences are seen to be slightly diminishing.

“As you know, we had a very good anticipated year for 2009, despite the economic downturn, because the association business does not follow the same timelines as those of the corporate one," said Philippe Fournier, IAPCO president. "Because of their structure, memberships and longterm events schedules, associations do not react in the same way of delaying activities until times of recovering. And although the current figures show an increase in international business undertaken during 2010, it still remains less than before due to this same 'time' reason. We had, however, an interesting year where we could see a re-boost of our international business in every sector.”

The various numbers from the survey, while indicating an increase in the number of meetings organized, reflect a drop in the number of participants attending each meeting. They also indicate a continuing decrease in surface of square meters used by exhibitors during healthcare meetings while the trend in other sectors is not the same. The overall budgets are slightly increasing but in a less proportion than before, showing a real impact on the economic downturn and probably new trends in the meetings and exhibitions industry.

IAPCO members organize in excess of 6,100 meetings annually, representing some 2.24 million delegates and 0.54 million square meters of exhibition space, for an economic impact in the region of 3.638 billion euros.

Attend any conference presentation nowadays, and you're likely to see half the audience watching the speaker. The other half have their heads down, most notably reading their smartphones, tweeting or reading websites on their laptops/tablets (but let's not rule out the possibility that they could be sleeping, too). 

This audience distraction is a given and something that a lot of presenters and planners work with or embrace. Two app developers noticed this trend and built an app for it called Donahue. 

In an interview with Jenn Webb on O'Reilly Radar, Tim Meaney and Christopher Fahey discuss why they created the app and how it works.

"Donahue is a presentation tool built upon the premise that certain conference presentations are best delivered in conversational format," Meaney said. "The app allows the presenter to construct their points as a series of portable ideas, delivered through Donahue into a number of views. Donahue also works by acknowledging that the audience wants to have a conversation. It's pretty standard today that the audience tweets during a talk, and then hours later the presenter uploads their slide deck to SlideShare, and then later elaborates their thesis or ideas in a blog post. With Donahue, that wall between audience and presenter, and the abstraction of a slide deck, is removed. The content and ideas are immediately shared, and the audience can immediately begin discussing them. People insist upon discussion, and instead of fighting that trend—'please close your laptops'—we went the other way and joined the conversation."

Webb asked the app's creators how they think conferences should evolve and improve. 

"You just can't come to understand and master a complex topic through listening to a lecture alone," Fahey said. "Learners need to read and study at their own pace. Conferences and lectures augment and inspire those materials. But most of all, conferences should connect both speakers and audiences with the subject matter and with each other. This enables learning by empowering people to pay attention together, think about ideas together, and most importantly, talk about them in the same energized moment."

Well said, sir, well said.