HOTEL HAPPENINGS & PROGRAM PROMOTIONS –OCTOBER 2024

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NO CAR, BUT HOTEL CHARGED MANDATORY VALET PARKING FEE!

No car, but parking fee charged anyway.

Robert Kraus, travel professional, event planner, and owner of Small Conferences LLC took an “expensive van service from the airport to a Florida hotel for a three-day educational conference aimed at meeting planners,” he explains. In his LinkedIn post, Kraus said the property was “near a beach that literally brags about how most of the properties there do not charge a “resort fee” and even offer free parking. The actual town I stayed in offers a surplus of complimentary parking along the main strip with no parking restrictions – welcoming guests to drive and stay there (as they are an hour away from the closest regional airport).” Along with his key and information about the complimentary breakfast

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MPI SBO: Holistic Harmony- Discovering the Wellness Within

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Wellness. What does it mean to you and how does having it benefit you both personally and professionally?

What it is, what to do about it, and what steps can be taken to improve an individual’s wellness are topics discussed in seminars, meetings, publications, and in the latest SBO Connects July 17 session. Claire Caldwell, a New York-based small business owner who specializes in Sales & Marketing Training, and who co-chairs

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HOTEL HAPPENINGS & PROGRAM PROMOTIONS –JUNE 2024

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Just one of the extraordinary inflatables by Disco Designer.

Occasionally, I see event props and décor that are over-the-top incredible. I have worked functions with enormous inflatables that enhance a theme but the ones from Peter Yordanov’s Disco Designer group soar to new levels of creativity, vivid colors, imagination, and yes, size. While there are many enormous inflatables on his FaceBook and LinkedIn

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MPI SBO: How to Solicit Strong & Effective Testimonial

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Lisa Speer panned for gold, not in a riverbed or deep within a cave walls’ veins. Instead, she targeted a much more valuable and easily accessed resource: her satisfied clients.

In the March 20th, one hour Zoom education session hosted by Meeting Professionals International’s Small Business Owners (MPI SBO) community council, the founder of Speerhead Solutions, a strategic branding business, said that “Testimonials are gold. But simply asking for one doesn’t ensure

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MPI SBO CONNECTS: REBOOT & RECOMMIT TO YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

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By Karen Kuzsel

Have your New Year’s resolutions for organizing, amplifying, and focusing your business gotten caught up in the complexities of personal and business time management, trying to be all things to all people in order to keep the money flowing in, sorting through business apps for one suitable to your expertise and needs, and trying to keep up with governmental rules, both federal, state or even by

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HOTEL HAPPENINGS & PROGRAM PROMOTIONS –JANUARY 2024

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HOT DEALS!

River rafting with Western River expeditions can earn planners a free trip!

Planners who book a group for a Western River Expeditions’ rafting adventure in 2024 get the entire trip for free.  The charters are for river rafting trips in Southern Utah destinations such as Desolation Canyon and Cataract Canyon as well as through Moab. Early bird bookings have the best selection of departure dates and destinations. User-friendly links also come with supplemental trip information, all designed

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MPI SBO- Retreat-for-One Gifts Your Business

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If time has been slipping away from you into 2024 and you’re desperate to have a more cohesive business plan, what should you do to get there? (Giving up, pulling your hair out, or pretending it won’t matter because you’ll figure it out “later” are not viable responses.)

The question of best practices for future business planning was the topic of discussion for the November 29, MPI SBO Connects hour-long session on Zoom. The Small Business Owners community is a slice of Meeting Professionals International that offers discussions and information about how to run your business. One way that is done is by offering informal social chat sessions

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MPI SBO CONNECTS: HITS, MISSES, AND NEEDS

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Lessons the hospitality, meetings & events industries learned from the “great COVID interruption” is that business models may have gotten deconstructed and staffing thinned, but continuing industry professionals dug in and have reshaped businesses to meet the future. Next generations of eager beginners are joining the ranks to reshape the future. It is imperative that valuable experience earned by longtime professionals is recognized and shared with “newbies”, that young staffers build new networking relationships, and that the experienced professionals who have left corporate positions to begin their own small business will evolve and thrive.

The Meeting Professional International Small Business Owners (MPI SBO) community is here to help. The community

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MPI SBO: Mentorship Moments – Rebuild, Rejuvenate, Reinvent

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What if the road you were travelling on suddenly dead-ended or another path beckoned with possibilities? Would you continue your planned journey or stride forward to see what could happen, prepared to meet unknown challenges?

Fortunately for the hospitality, meetings and events industries, Terri Breining, CMM, CED and CMP Fellow, chose the latter.

As she indicated during the Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Small Business Owners’ SBO) Mentorship Moments hour-long Zoom session on May 18, her business journey has never been predictable or traveled in her anticipated direction, but what made her journey remarkable

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MPI SBO: IS CHATGPT RIGHT FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS NEEDS?

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The Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Small Business Owners’ (SBO) April Mentor program on ChatGPT had barely turned off the Zoom microphones and web cameras when the plethora of newer information and controversies about the suddenly-trending Artificial Intelligence (AI) came pouring across the social media-verse faster than a speeding (bullet) train.

If you are an MPI member and want to learn how ChatGPT does or may affect your small business (under 400 staff), click onto MPI’s SBO

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