Taking your best clients to the Super Bowl is a relationship- building coup. Few events can compare to the annual NFL extravaganza for sheer over-the-top excitement. That's why booking hotel rooms in the host city is such a nightmare. In January, Patrick Henry, of Stafford, Texas-based Patrick Henry Creative Promotions, found a unique solution to this problem when he took a group to the game--he brought his own rooms. The Houston-based marketing firm chartered seven vintage rail cars with sleeper berths from Rail Ventures, a Sand Point, Idaho-based company that charters vintage rail cars. The cars were attached to an Amtrak train in Chicago and 40 of Henry's best clients made the journey to New Orleans for the big game. Along the way the group had meetings to discuss future projects and partnerships for the upcoming year in one of the cars that had been converted into a 12-seat boardroom. "Our clients just went crazy over it. We've already booked San Diego for the next Super Bowl. We're going to have our clients fly into Los Angeles and travel by train down the coast to San Diego."
If Henry wanted to, he could even charter a plane and have meetings on the flight to Los Angeles. In the past few years, advances in charter aircrafts have made airborne meetings a real possibility. For the last 10 months, Flight Time Corporation, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based air charter broker has been organizing a regular weekly schedule of charters for an energy company in the process of opening a new plant outside its home state. Both management and workers travel on the weekly shuttles between both destinations. "While on board the 80-seat aircraft, the passengers participate in general introduction sessions as to what they'll be doing at the new destination, what the goals are for the week, the agenda, and so on," says D.C. Clark, director of sales for Flight Time.
Traveling to meetings no longer has to be considered "dead" time. Groups can prepare for a meeting they are in transit to, or actually have the meeting itself. With train and rail charters, it's truly not the destination--it's the journey.
Time Travel
Traveling by train was something of an attraction 40 or 50 years ago, but when Amtrak took over the operation of the nation's rail system back in the 1970s, it took the romance and elegance out of the experience. That loss all those years ago is the meeting planners gain today as the luxury of vintage rail cars and trains have created an exciting venue niche for incentive events and corporate meetings. "It's a unique experience that has a lot of history and you can see a lot of scenery that you can't see from an automobile or a plane," says Kathy Louth, vice president marketing and sales for the St. Louis-based Rail Cruise America. "We call it an adventure with style."
One of the cars used in the Super Bowl event was a vintage car that Presidents have used for whistle stops in the past. It still had the Presidential Seal on it. "Every one of our guests had their picture taken with the Presidential Seal," recalls Henry. "One guest made the comment that he never was more relaxed than on this trip. He said waking up in the morning going sixty miles an hour with the scenery moving by was just spectacular. It was like traveling in the old days."
Meetings on board trains can be as content-heavy as those held in stationary facilities. Rail Ventures, for instance has a car that has been permanently reconfigured for board meetings. The car is wired for state-of-the-art meetings technology and features a solid mahogany table for board meetings.
A chapter of the California State Real Estate Association actually did their license testing through the course of a three-hour excursion on board the Napa Valley Wine Train. There were 56 attendees in the group. Over the course of the three-hour trip they did a wrap up of their training, took the licensing test, and enjoyed a four-course meal. "The meeting had a purpose but it was also a reward for completing the training," says Erica Ercolano, director of marketing and business development, Napa Valley Wine Train. "About eighty percent of the corporate groups will just do simple meetings like awards and announcements, but twenty percent will do intensive meetings like the real estate group."
There are many options for train charters that fit groups both large and small. Large groups should consider Rocky Mountain Rail Tours which travels between Vancouver and Banff. The train is essentially a cruise ship on rails and can accommodate groups as large as 600. "We offer three different programs for groups," says Graham Gilley, vice president of marketing and communications. "Our Incentives program features dedicated lounge cars and menus and even air transportation and hotel accommodations. The Rolling Retreats program is tailored to small meetings of up to 24 people in a boardroom setting. For the Meetings in Motion program we reconfigure specialty cars so they can seat about 44 people."
Groups that want to travel to a specific destination should look into private rail car and engine charters. There are many people in the United States who own one or two private cars that can be attached to Amtrak trains, and there are rail charter companies that have numerous cars and even vintage engines to cart them around.
Just taking off
While the move toward meetings on trains is well established, the idea of holding meetings on planes is a relatively new development. "Most of our clients still just use the jets to get to the destination, but there is a lot of informal face-to-face discussion of business matters on board," says Kim Scolari, spokesperson for the Van Nuys, California-based Jet Productions.
But many companies are taking the next step toward actual meetings though the content is not as intensive as what you would find in a hotel meeting room or conference center. "Small groups have been holding casual meetings on aircraft for a while but the trend toward official meetings is definitely something that we have been seeing more of. Primarily, the goal of these meetings is relationship building. It's not a real hard content," says Clark.
Pre-meeting content is also a popular topic for in-flight meetings. "Many of our clients use them for meeting preparation and presentation rehearsals," says Kathy Tyler, senior vice president of client relations for the Cincinnati-based Executive Jet Management. "Charters are a good option for this type of activity because it affords small groups the privacy to discuss strategy. If the group is on a commercial aircraft, they might not feel comfortable doing that in such a public space."
Clark organizes charters for a financial company that conducts road shows for potential clients around the country. The executives use the time spent flying to the destinations to prepare for their presentations. "We've done quite a few financial road shows in which the passengers held meetings in flight so they could hit the ground running when they landed."
Advances in the design of corporate jets have made the increase in the level of in-flight meeting activity possible. The Gulf Stream series of jets can accommodate up to 14 passengers and can have satellite communication capabilities on board, voice and data capabilities along with fax machines, VCR and DVD systems with multiple television monitors (some have monitors at each seat), and Internet access.
But the real revolution is the advent of the Boeing 737 Business Jets. "The Boeing 737 Business Jet can be set up with a full conference facility on board with audio/visual capabilities similar to those you will find in stationary meeting facilities on the ground. You could even land the plane and have the attendees meet you at the airport," says Geoff Savage, managing director, JetWest, a jet charter firm based in Van Nuys, California.
The 737 Boeing Business Jet has been in the charter market for a number of years but is starting to become more common. In the past these jets were mainly used as professional sports team transports. "You wouldn't believe the size of the Boeing 737 Business Jet 700 or 800 series," says Tom Ryan, spokesman for the Seattle-based Boeing.
In a traditional setup it can seat up to 130 people, but now this can be broken down and reconfigured to accommodate a number of different business applications. The most common of these new configurations seats 18 to 25 people and has executive conference areas and dining areas. "It's almost as though the bar has been raised for corporate jets," says Tyler.