As airline prices rise and become increasingly unstable, many association planners are turning to regional drive-in meetings to keep costs down and draw the maximum number of members in one go.

Katelyn Weeks, CMP, director of conferences and events for MSFC in Philadelphia, says, “Reducing costs is something we’ve always been doing as a non-profit. We actually subsidize costs for students to attend to keep our events affordable, but because we work with medical students across the U.S. and Canada, as well as internationally, sometimes it’s hard to get everyone in one area.

“We try to have events in areas that are drivable to reduce costs for students and the organization as well. We take a look at what the most cost-effective region is first,” says Weeks. “If the driving distance is under four hours, they’re happier to do that than to fly. We’ll save them money and time.”

Price Is Paramount

Attendees understand the importance of attending association events, even in the face of global or personal economic concerns, but price is always a factor. “Showing up in person is huge for members, especially for the networking,” says Lyn Henderson, CMP, president of the Orlando, Florida-based Women in Film & Television-Florida and previously executive director and meeting planner for the Maitland, Florida-based Violin Society of America.

“This is true for every association I’ve ever done events for. You can do distance learning, but you can’t replace in-person networking,” she continues. “You can Skype or do Facebook, but there’s nothing like when someone from California finally meets someone they know from Ohio in person. Face-to-face meetings will never go out of business.

“For small associations or associations for members who don’t have expense rules, like non-corporate members, finances play a huge part: event fee, travel expenses and hotel expenses.” — Lyn Henderson

“Price is the No. 1 thing for many attendees though,” Henderson says. “For small associations or associations for members who don’t have expense rules, like non-corporate members, finances play a huge part: event fee, travel expenses and hotel expenses. On the planner side, sometimes you can’t negotiate the resort fee and the Internet fee, and it gets to be quite a burden. Anything a planner can do to mitigate that is always better for the ROI of the meeting.

“Many times people are paying for everything themselves,” she continues. “When I worked for the Violin Society of America, a non-profit created for the purpose of promoting the art and science of making and preserving stringed instruments, such as violins, violas, basses, and cellos, our members were artisans and scientists. Of the people who would come to our biannual meeting and international competition were people vying for medals, and it’s very serious business. Some are people who live in the woods and make two instruments a year, and that’s their whole income.”

While cost concerns have always been a major factor for association event attendees, recent developments in the airline industry have made the situation more difficult in regard to event-related travel specifically. “It’s a huge cost saving when they can drive to an event, because I think flying has become a bit of a hassle for a lot of people,” says Debbie Farnum, CMP, senior meeting planner at the Austin, Texas-based Texas Association of School Boards Inc. “Even with our large meetings like our convention, which has 7,500 attendees for instance, the great majority, probably 85 to 95 percent do drive, even though those meetings rotate between Dallas, Austin and Houston.”

For someone who doesn’t live near a hub airport, if attending an event requires a flight, it can simply be out of the question in many cases. As major U.S. airlines have consolidated, a process that kicked off in 2008 with the Northwest Airlines-Delta merger and winds down as US Airways now becomes part of the “new” American Airlines, small and mid-sized airports have fewer and fewer flights available. The ones that remain are often at inopportune times and priced as high as cross-country flights due to lack of competition.

“Even on short hops within the state, its still very expensive,” says Farnum. “When you can use one vehicle and fill it up twice each way, going and coming, at $40 or $50, that’s less than the cost of one flight. For public officials spending tax dollars, that savings is very attractive.” Taking into account the extra fees imposed by airlines today — $200 change fees, $50 checked bag fees, and even fees just to get a seat assignment — driving one car can even cost less than putting one person on a plane.

Because attendees pay the same for gas whether they drive solo or in a group, it also allows more members from the same area or company to attend a meeting. “Because we’re school boards, they’re bringing a school vehicle,” Farnum continues. “They’ll pile six people into a Tahoe, and it’s great bonding time for the board. It gives them an opportunity to get to know each other while saving the district a tremendous amount of money, so if it’s practical, they’ll do it. At many of our meetings, the parking lot is full of school vehicles. It also saves on parking when they get in if they carpool.”

For drive-in meetings, you also are less tied to destinations close to airports and urban centers, opening up a wide variety of properties that not only have the parking you need when the majority of attendees drive, but also have more availability for rooms and meeting space and often scenic locations or unique activities.

In the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, the two main casino areas — Atlantic City and central Connecticut — have increasingly lured planners in the region who are having trouble negotiating the space and rates they need at city hotels, while many hotels in Virginia, particularly within easy driving distance of Washington, DC, offer a retreat-like atmosphere ideal for educational meetings.

Downtown Is a Double-edged Sword

When planning a meeting that’s easy for attendees to drive to, typical site selection factors such as walkability and ease of getting to the city center from the airport give way to parking availability and ease of reaching the meeting location from the interstate. But while airport hotels or other venues on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas seem the natural choice when prioritizing these factors, they sometimes don’t make the most appropriate choice for association meetings.

“It’s hard because they may have the availability, but when you’re trying to draw in students to attend your event, if there aren’t things for them to do near the venue and it’s hard for them to access the city, it’s a hard sell,” Weeks says. “But, at the same time, for us that’s a benefit, because our events are educational and there’s no distractions. You have to keep that in mind when you look at cities like Las Vegas where there’s so much to do. Is it a distraction?

“Right now we’re working on training institutes that are done by an application process, and we’re fully covering their travel,” she explains. “So because we’re funding them to attend it, it’s a very solid, action-packed weekend, and we use less expensive rooms and F&B, and just one hotel night, so it can be in an out-of-town airport location. They fly in Friday and leave Saturday, with the program all day, so we pick places that have a hotel and something to do within walking distance, but it’s not as important in terms of things to do as our large meeting.

“For our larger meeting the location is more of a draw, it’s a larger audience, and it may also be their only free weekend that term while they’re in medical school. We’re very, very conscious of where we are and what students can do there. The education part is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., so they have evenings to themselves to explore the city.

“Because of the cost for us, we aren’t able to select some of the downtown locations anyway, and there are usually definitely a lot of options outside the city that are appropriate for drive-in attendees, but it depends if there’s a citywide going on. It’s a mix of whether there are fewer or more options available for drive-ins, because sometimes you assume there will be availability outside the city center, but if there’s a citywide, the airport hotels book up in cities like Philadelphia or Washington, DC. Then you can pair with the citywide to get whatever space is not being used at a good rate for regional meetings, but for larger meetings I try to plan for when there’s not a citywide going on,” Weeks adds.

As an association that conducts most of its meetings and events on a regional basis, dynamic, activity-filled city center locations are an important part of the draw for Farnum’s large annual events. “It depends where we are, but sometimes we do meetings in really small towns,” she says. “A lot of regional meetings are done either at universities or education service centers, so we limit the ones done at hotels. For our large conventions we always do the downtown convention center.

“We just added Austin to our rotation, and in the city of Austin there’s so much in the downtown area,” she explains. “It’s known as a downtown city and the music capital, so attendees like staying downtown. There’s a lot of really good restaurants and live entertainment, and the downtown area is square and laid out in even blocks so it’s easy to get from hotel to convention center to restaurants. However, the downtown traffic stinks — there’s quite a bit of construction going on — so attendees like to get downtown and stay downtown. There’s a lot of stuff going on all the time, and the lake is downtown.

“It’s the same thing in Dallas,” Farnum says. “Dallas has really come up in terms of having more things downtown. It’s done a huge transition downtown with museums and restaurants, and they also have the Dart (Dallas area rapid transit), and we’ve found that a lot of members utilize the Dart to get around once they’re in the city.

“In Houston, right in front of the convention center there’s a plethora of restaurants, music venues and things to do that didn’t used to be there,” she continues. “There are new hotels, new everything. It’s very much changed in the last six to eight years, and I think members appreciate being somewhere where they can literally park the car and go not very far by foot to find interesting things.

“I’ve found that the best source of finding out if attendees would prefer to be downtown or not is to check with the CVB,” she advises. “The CVBs can lead you to think of things you wouldn’t have thought of. They know the city best and can be a huge resource, but I also use regional salespeople for various hotels, like the regional sales managers for Starwood or Marriott and places like that, because they know the area.”

When you know that a sizable percentage of your attendees will be driving, once you zero in on the best location for your attendees and for your meeting, you have to negotiate the biggest hurdle of drive-in meetings: parking fees.

Heading Off Potential Parking Pain

When one of the main drivers for planning a meeting attendees can drive to is cost savings, the fees associated with driving come into sharper focus than ever, particularly parking. “Honestly parking and parking fees were a huge issue for my drive-in meetings,” says Henderson. “I remember looking for the Violin Society at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay, which was a fantastic hotel, but the parking was $25 per day and these people are there five or six days.

“We ended up going to the Crowne Plaza in Baltimore, which had tons of free parking, and while it was not as nice, it was a good, solid, familiar hotel and had the space we needed,” she continues. “There were a couple other hotels we looked at outside Philadelphia and Cincinnati, when we were looking in the Midwest, and it just seemed that more people could drive to Baltimore from more areas.”

One of the best ways to combat the parking fee issue is to be as rigid about it as you would with your space or AV needs during the RFP process. “We always put free parking in the RFP,” says Weeks. “We mostly use hotels for the package base, because it’s easier for us to work with. Out by the airport or suburban locations, parking is usually included and not another $40 a day.”

In some cases, especially if the size of your event or continued patronage justifies negotiation, you can get the hotel to bring the fee down for attendees. “We always try to negotiate the price of valet, either discounted or free valet, but it depends if the facility owns that parking or not,” says Farnum. “Many don’t own their parking, though quite a few of them do. If they can offer us discounted parking for even $5 or $6 or $10 off, it is a real plus for members. When they see the hotel has a discount, they really like that.”

To Drive or Not to Drive

While it ultimately comes down to your audience — do they have access to vehicles? Is cost a primary concern? Do they often travel for meetings? — strategic use of drive-in meetings can be a substantial cost savings for both your organization and your meeting attendees when done properly. AC&F