To remain strategic and respect planners’ time, destinations and hotels are planning shorter familiarization trips that often include important extras: educational components, networking sessions or a community service opportunity.
For many destinations, the meeting planner familiarization (FAM) trip remains a sales and marketing tool that showcases their attributes beyond what other methods can match. But it is a tool that is being sharpened to fit the realities of a time-squeezed business environment that frowns on frills.
"In the old days, FAM trips were more leisurely paced and there was no agenda," says Judy Johnson, CMP (MPI Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter), president and CEO of Rx Worldwide Meetings, who has been in the industry for 40 years. "Now they are shorter and have an educational component to them, often networking sessions with various hoteliers or people from the hotel chain.
There may be a community service component. There are no more lavish days spent at a resort."
Value for the destination
What hasn’t changed is that destinations still regard FAMs as effective. Tourism Ireland, which typically organizes four trips a year for U.S.-based meeting and incentive planners, has found such trips a strategic means of targeting the meetings sector, according to Marie McKown (MPI Chicago Area Chapter), the group’s Chicago-based manager of business tourism.
"We believe that nothing beats first-hand knowledge of the destination," she says. "Planners need to speak with authority. No matter how many books you read or videos you see, you can’t really know what the country is like or what it’s like to do business there."
At the same time, Tourism Ireland is cognizant of the fact that planners face increasing challenges in taking time away for an overseas trip.
"We are constantly tweaking the trips to facilitate the planners—some don’t want to be away on weekends but others do because it means less time out of the office," McKown says. "The itineraries have grown shorter and more condensed."
In Indianapolis, meeting planner FAM trips are so effective in generating bookings for the city that Visit Indy is sponsoring more of them than ever, says Lisa Wallace, communications manager for meetings and conventions. While the CVB has long organized trips around its famous sporting events, such as the Indianapolis 500, it has recently added trips with holiday, arts and culture themes.
However, much like Tourism Ireland, Visit Indy’s approach to FAMs reflects the reality of planners’ time constraints. Not only has the duration of some trips grown shorter, but the bureau recently began offering what it calls "pop-up" FAMs for which individual planners can sly in and out of the city for just one day.
"We feel seeing the destination has a strong impact on planners, but we know that time away from work and family is difficult," Wallace says. "The pop-up FAM is very popular—the planner can get a brief overview and see our four major connected hotels and dining options."
In Orlando, FAM trips are viewed as a strategic sales and marketing tool as well as a means to keep planners up to date about the destination’s frequently expanding meetings infrastructure, according to George Aguel (MPI Greater Orlando Area Chapter), president and CEO of Visit Orlando.
Part of the destination’s approach is to tailor each trip according to a specific segment of the meeting industry.
"We like to keep the trips personalized and in accordance to what we want to achieve," Aguel says. "For instance, if we are looking at citywide convention business, we will invite planners who are aligned with that objective. We don’t want the trips to be too generic."
For second-tier cities, FAMs are a key opportunity to introduce themselves to planners who may know little about the destination. This is a major reason why Travel Portland has continued to organize two FAMs a year over the past decade, regardless of economic conditions, says Desiree Everett, CMP, CGMP, director of convention sales. The trips, which take place during
June and December, usually run for four days and include sightseeing opportunities and free time as well as hotel and convention center site inspections.
"The trips are very worthwhile for us—our booking ratio has been positively affected," Everett says. "What makes a FAM better than just a site inspection is that the planner gets to know the neighborhoods, experience the restaurants and see what the destination is about."
While destinations usually have little trouble securing hotels and venues to host planners, getting airline sponsorship for a FAM has grown increasingly difficult. For many destinations, footing the bill for planners’ airline transportation has become a necessary business expense.
"Air transportation is where we have to put the money up front, but it’s crucial to provide it," Everett says. "Air can be a real stumbling block for some destinations."
Value to the planner
FAM trips often benefit planners as much as they do destinations, but planners need to carefully determine whether the trip will be a valuable education experience or "just a waste of time," says Andy McNeill, president and CEO of American Meetings in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
"The trips have to be really relevant to what we sell to our clients," he says. "You have to really look at whether or not the venues will meet their needs."
On the positive side, McNeil says that more destinations are taking a targeted, strategic approach to FAMs.
"The best situation is when CVBs pre-qualify the planners and survey us ahead of time about what we need," he says. "If the venues are spread around too much it doesn’t help the planners. It’s also great when the host schedules some one-on-one time with sponsors, so it’s not just a dog-and-pony show for the whole group."
While acknowledging that the trend toward shorter trips is necessary, Maralynn Adams, CMP, owner and senior event director of The Corporate Events Group in Campbell, Calif., dislikes what she sees as an accompanying trend for tightly packed itineraries with little or no free time.
"I know I’m not on vacation, but I don’t want to be run into the ground," she says. "I’ve been on trips when there’s not even time to take a shower between the day’s activities and going to dinner. I need a little leisure time, perhaps to be able to order room service and really get a feel for the hotel. It helps put things in perspective for your clients."
Who is taking FAMS?
For Adams, who spent much of her career as an in-house corporate planner for tech companies such as Cisco and Oracle, the option of attending FAMs only became a reality when she started as an independent planner six years ago.
"When I was on the corporate side, it was hard to even find the time to attend one or it wasn’t allowed at all," she says. "It’s very difficult for corporate planners to attend FAMs and very hard for destinations to include them."
When it comes to working with corporate planners, destinations often present alternatives to the group FAM.
"Unless a corporate planner is very firmly looking at a destination, they probably won’t go on a FAM trip," says McKown of Tourism Ireland. "To assist a corporate planner, we usually arrange for site inspections on an individual basis."
With independent or third-party planners making up the bulk of FAM participants, destinations are sometimes challenged to determine who is a legitimate business prospect and who is not. When in doubt, the host may require that the planner bring a prospective client along on the trip.
According to Adams, destinations increased this practice during the recession when corporate downsizing led to a large increase in the independent and third-party sector.
"Fortunately, the requirement of bringing along a direct client has lightened up in the past couple of years," she says. "It’s a tough requirement—if you can’t get a corporate client to come on a trip, how can I? My clients are very busy. That’s why they expect me to gather the knowledge for them."
While inviting planners whose organizations or clients are already seriously considering a destination may be ideal, many hosts also recognize the value of the FAM as a means for sparking new interest and generating future business. The important thing is for planners to be completely honest about their situation, according to Rx Meetings’ Johnson, a frequent speaker on meeting industry ethics.
"Last year I was invited to South Africa, but I told them that I had never sent a client there and that they should not take me if there were better qualified candidates," she says. "They still wanted me. As it turned out, we ended up booking two meetings there."
