McLean, Va. — The Convention Industry Council has adopted best practices for event housing and registration as part of its Accepted Practices Exchange initiative, better known as APEX.
The CIC board's approval of the final housing and registration report marks the fourth area of meeting planning to complete the APEX process. The board has also approved final reports for terminology, history/post-event reporting, and event specifications. The remaining three areas awaiting final approval and reports are requests for proposals, meeting and site profiles, and contracts.
The housing and registration panel was charged with developing best practices for collecting, reporting and retrieving housing and registration information. The panel was co-chaired by Deborah Sexton, chief executive of the Professional Convention Management Association, and Robert Hope, director of housing, registration and travel services for the Radiological Society of North America.
"Based on this panel's work, we have solid, practical guidelines and best practices," said Hope. "Beyond that, I believe that the process of developing accepted practices itself is creating greater unity and cohesiveness among all of the industry segments."
In the final report, accepted practices, templates, and development and management instructions are detailed for three forms commonly deployed throughout the industry: event registration, housing and rooming lists.
Additionally, accepted practices were developed to address housing-related terminology, hotel room-block management, and the role of computerized technology in the industry's housing and registration processes.
The CIC is an umbrella group for 31 leading organizations that represent more than 100,000 individuals and 15,000 firms and lodging properties in the meetings and hospitality industries.
The report, including forms, is available at www.conventionindustry.org.