All posts by Ron Bernthal

During the Tourism Industry Association of Canada’s (TIAC) annual conference this past November, it was reported that business events now accounts for 34.4 percent of all tourism in Canada, a big part of Canada’s US$71 billion tourism industry.

Emerging destinations aren’t necessarily undiscovered places. Savannah, Georgia, one of our selected destinations, was founded in 1733 and Columbia, South Carolina, in 1786.

In 1989 Steve Wynn opened The Mirage, a $750 million, 30-story Las Vegas casino and hotel tower, the first new gaming hotel to be constructed on the Las Vegas Strip since 1974. With its 3,044 guest rooms and 100 acres on the still-burgeoning Las Vegas Strip, The Mirage ushered in the birth of the integrated […]

Despite a difficult few years for the Caribbean Islands hit by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the region still managed to attract almost 30 million visitors in 2018, its second-best year ever, and the Caribbean Tourism Organization is forecasting 6-7 percent growth in tourism arrivals in 2019, as most of the damaged infrastructure in hurricane-impacted destinations returns to normal.

Business and professional networking is widely recognized as the lifeblood of the meetings industry,” writes Joan Eisenstodt and Mitchell Beer, CMM, from a chapter in Professional Meeting Management (Kendall-Hunt), a textbook from the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) Educational Foundation.

While keto diets, golden milk lattes and gluten-free may have made inroads in the meetings industry last year, 2019 will see the rise of many additional healthy food and beverage trends that planners can get excited about.

Destinations can be alluring, especially during Midwestern and Northeastern winters.

New or recently renovated convention center hotels have seen an increase in overall group business, a result of favorable macroeconomic trends that are currently boosting budgets for corporate events.

Emerging destinations aren’t necessarily undiscovered places — perhaps a more fitting description would be newly discovered. Sometimes called second-tier cities, there is nothing “second” about them, except that they have less traffic, are less expensive and have less attitude than their more famous big sister cities.

Larger theme parks are like small cities, making them the perfect choice for corporate events.