You can hear the groans now when you announce that instead of your annual January sales meeting in a tropical destination you’ll be meeting at a local hotel in your wintry backyard. You feel the pressure to pull off a highly successful event, yet how can you create an over-the-top meeting experience when your meeting isn’t in an exotic setting?

You’re not alone. As the economic storm clouds continually darken the corporate sky, companies worldwide have tightened their travel budgets and drastically cut their meetings, some even cancelling events on the books for years.

Still, phone calls, e-mail, social media, and video conferencing simply aren’t as effective as face-to-face meetings. According to a recent survey in Harvard Business Review, 95 percent of survey participants feel face-to-face-travel is essential for selling new business and building long-term relationships.

In response to budget cuts, planners are tasked with creating meeting experiences close to home. Some might translate that as a cry to abandon a sinking ship, but others like Audra Neurauter, lead reward and recognition professional for Qwest Communications, take budget cuts as a challenge to her planning skills.

Backyard Meetings Don’t Have To Be Boring

Neurauter and her team coordinate numerous events for Qwest, a Denver-based full-service telecommunications provider. In the past two years, they’ve already set the stage for success by establishing a round of recognition programs known as Bravo! Club. These programs are located close to Qwest’s call centers. Many are located in smaller cities, such as Sioux Falls, Des Moines and Boise, often with only one local hotel option such as the Shilo Inn in Idaho Falls. When meetings are held in Denver and Phoenix, unique opportunities abound with multiple available hotels and venues.

According to Neurauter, returning to the same hotel year after year isn’t a negative. “You have established a meeting history. The hotel is the same; staff is consistent; and everyone knows what to do to ensure your meeting is successful. They are in it with me without my having to micromanage. Instead of maneuvering the problems of a new venue, I concentrate on making the event better than last year.”

In lieu of a fancy trip to the Caribbean for the company’s incentive winners, Audra Neurauter, lead reward and recognition professional for Qwest Communications, uses themed high-energy shows at her company’s events to make them unique. Here Paul Borrollo, their talented emcee, entertains as Johnny Conductor at the recent Mystery on the Bravo! Express. Photos courtesy of Qwest Communications

Don’t Underestimate The Value Of Theme

Neurauter encourages planners to create a theme for the meeting that makes it unique. Themes for the Bravo! Club series have ranged from Hot Bravo! Nights to Mystery on the Bravo! Express. Using social media tools, Neurauter begins by posting teasers on the Bravo! Club Facebook fan page before rolling out the program in a cyber celebration. She reminds planners to distribute registration materials or invitations well in advance and follow-up with a reminder, even if it’s a mandatory meeting.

To help celebrate the call centers’ achievement locally, Qwest’s corporate executives travel to the events. The same emcee, Paul Borrollo, also travels to each of the events, changing hats and names to reflect the theme, from Johnny Fever, to Count Johnny and Johnny Cuba to Johnny Conductor.

Neurauter said, “Without Paul’s unique talent and entertainment, it’s just another corporate awards banquet. He gives the show character and personality, logistically staging and timing the awards program with humor.”

Neurauter describes the Bravo! Club events as high-energy shows that are broken up over the courses of the meal. The show begins, then a break and salad is served; the awards start and then pause for a break for dinner and entertainment, followed by dessert and then dancing.

Faced with aggressive fall budget cuts, she met the challenge head on. For example, the latest fall series featured a mystery on a train. She created a train-like entrance with inexpensive drapery, and she replaced banquet rounds with long tables, creating the illusion of connecting train cars. Instead of tablecloths, she utilized less costly runners, small table lamps and plastic diamonds scattered down the runners instead of expensive floral centerpieces. She encouraged the attendees to become part of the setting by dressing to fit the theme: Many attendees wore suits and hats, and even dressed as soldiers and conductors. The result was a budget cut of $12,000 on décor alone.

“I’d love to tell the sales team that their reward for a job well done is an incentive trip to the Caribbean,” said Neurauter, “but that’s just not going to happen. The perception is that going local is less extravagant. Yet with 75 percent of my meetings occurring in their backyards, I still have to make their recognition events an exceptional experience. That’s my challenge, and we’ve created an exciting awards program that everyone looks forward to round after round.”

Build Solid Relationships

Lisa Shingleton-Palumbo is the meeting planner for the Tampa office of The Nielsen Company, one of the world’s largest marketing and media information companies, headquartered in New York City.

Responsible for up to 30 meetings per year, budget constraints also had Shingleton-Palumbo checking out nearby meeting properties before settling on nearby Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club. Past events at Innisbrook have ranged from team meetings, direct report meetings, employee appreciation dinners, to the upcoming two-week training program for their Emerging Leaders. These meetings often included overnight stays with a mix of local and out-of-town attendees.

Singleton-Palumbo credits building a solid relationship over the years with Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club for her success in negotiating multiple backyard meetings that stayed within budget.

“Especially in today’s economy, most local properties are willing to work with local planners,” she added. “Many offer a same-state discount, and Innisbrook went the extra mile by factoring in several amenities to make our program a win-win.”

In fact, Innisbrook took the initiative and suggested several possible teambuilding activities, including a clam bake at a nearby beautiful beach with a fire pit just outside a new popular bar.

“Our local and out-of-town attendees alike enjoyed the opportunity to get outside of the ballroom,” said Singleton-Palumbo. “Florida in the winter makes for a relaxing outdoor breakfast and dinner, too. Attendees can also take advantage of the countless outdoor activities at Innisbrook including tennis, hiking nature trails, biking and golf.”

Finally, Singleton-Palumbo praised Innisbrook for its extensive renovation that made the quality of the backyard meeting over-the-top.

In the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club is located just 25 minutes from Tampa International Airport, with a backyard setting that includes 900 wooded acres of rolling hills and 70 acres of lakes. Recently, the 608-room resort completed $26 million in improvements throughout the property. Most significant to the planner is the newly remodeled, 65,000 square feet of meeting space with three conference halls.

Don’t Forget Your CVB

Kathryn Horton, senior director of convention events and services at San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, encourages planners to utilize all their resources, especially when it’s in their own backyard.

“Your local CVB knows the city intimately,” explained Horton, “often more so than the locals. You may live and work on the north side of Market Street and not be aware that the South of Market area is opening a new restaurant perfect for your board meeting. We have our finger on the pulse of the industry and a pipeline to all that can make your backyard experience exciting.”

San Francisco offers more than 32,000 hotel rooms, from first-class hotels and ultra-chic boutique hotels to familiar brands. Mix in their amazing world-class theater, opera, Broadway plays, symphony and ballet companies, diverse cultural influences and its reputation as one of America’s greatest dining cities, and even local planner’s head’s might spin from the possibilities.

Horton offered up the following suggestions to give local meetings sizzle:

Act Like A Tourist

In order to create the ambience that excites attendees, Rosalie Oekerman, CMP, explores her backyard as if she’s a tourist, and she even goes to some of the tourist traps, because “if I weren’t a native, that’s what I’d do.”

Her reconnaissance efforts have been successful. Some of the tours, considered too touristy to locals, turned out to be interesting to add for optional group tours, such as Portland’s Walking Tours and

In her quest to find local Portland venues such as RiverPlace Marina (above), planner Rosalie Oekerman consults Travel Portland, the convention and visitors bureau. Photo by Edward Nugent, Travel Portland

Underground Tours.

Oekerman is an account executive for the Beaverton, OR-based Beatty Group International (BGI). BGI offers a full range of incentive and meeting planning services, with special expertise in travel and merchandise reward programs.

When recently tasked with creating a program for a corporate group in nearby Portland, she’d already done her homework. “I’m constantly on a mining mission finding one piece of a puzzle here and then another there. I make it a point to attend local events showcasing restaurants, new venues, hotels and conference centers. Even though I’m from this area, I often pick the brain of our CVB, Travel Portland. I also attend local trade shows.”

Oekerman reads all local publications and trade magazines. She’s always pleasantly surprised to uncover hidden gems for her corporate clients, from ballrooms to unique venues, which traditionally were only used for weddings.

For example, for a recent local technology group of 50 attendees, Oekerman was asked to find an upscale property that didn’t break the bank, but did give the attendees a sense of place. She’d read about the Hotel deLuxe, a downtown Portland hotel that opened in a restored historic building a few years ago. The boutique hotel is a nod to the Golden Era of Hollywood filmmaking, maintaining many of its historic elements, including mail chutes. The hotel features three meeting rooms, perfect for a smaller group like hers, and a place she might not have considered if she hadn’t widened her research efforts.

For an offsite event, she previously discovered the Portland Classical Chinese Gardens, an authentic 40,000-square-foot cultural heritage garden and living museum of Chinese trees and flora with twisting mosaic pathways. Open to the public during the day, it was another venue popular for weddings that she booked for a private corporate event. On a previous visit, she relied on the local Chinese community, specifically the garden staff, for a suggestion. A phone call later, she’d booked a local Chinese dance troupe, the Lion Dance Group. The colorful lion-headed, costumed troupe greeted her attendees when they exited the bus, adding to the cultural experience of the entire event.

For another local Port­land technology company with 150 active attendees, Oekerman extended her local reach to nearby Bend, just three hours away, to the Sunriver Resort. According to Oekerman, it was far enough away that even locals felt like they were out of town and didn’t feel the pull to go home each night and attend to office or family issues.

Located on the dry side of the Cascade Mountains in central Oregon’s high country, Sunriver Resort is considered a four-season family, meeting and golf destination. It is a recreational delight with 63 holes of golf; 28 tennis courts; 35 miles of paved bike paths; three swimming complexes; horseback riding; a marina with kayak and canoe rentals; and fly fishing. Yet it also offers access to more than 44,000 square feet of flexible meeting, banquet and exhibit space.

The summer meeting gave the sales team successive teambuilding opportunities incorporating the beautiful outdoor setting. Optional activities included climbing, horseback riding, caving and of course, golf and spa. The most exciting and challenging event was a full day of river rafting. Oekerman had to charter every boat on the river, so that all attendees could participate at the same time.

“It was a thrilling, action-packed meeting,” recalled Oekerman. “The attendees were not limited to those from the local corporate office, but it was the locals that were most amazed. Most locals had only considered Bend for winter or summer destinations, not during the shoulder season. That’s the beauty of rediscovering your own backyard. You open the destination to your meeting and discover there’s more to your hometown than you may have realized.”    C&IT