It sounded too good to be true. When a Midwestern resort invited its top meeting-planner clients to spend a weekend at the property with a guest, enjoying golf, spa treatments, and wine tastings, several planners called to inquire about the cost.
The occasion was Meeting Planner Appreciation Day (so called because planners could stay just one day, or the whole weekend if they wished), but apparently planners aren't accustomed to appreciation. "They thought it was a package to book," says John Callan, general manager of Indian Lakes Resort in the Chicago suburbs. He gently corrected callers' misconceptions, explaining, "You're our guest."
Callan's sales department dreamed up the event for Indian Lakes' 25th anniversary. With over half the property's business deriving from corporate meetings and events, explains Callan, "It was an opportunity to thank our clients," who include representatives from Philip Morris, Carrier air conditioning, and Experian software. (Paring down the guest list, he adds, was "a brutal exercise.")
Silver Dollars Kim Grant, Indian Lakes' director of convention services, themed the event around that traditional symbol of quarter-century commemorations: silver. Décor for the opening gala reception featured a miniature Chicago skyline that included a 30-foot replica of the Sears Tower, silvery strips of Mylar fabric, and silver-painted "freeze" performers (who pose as if they're statues, but move occasionally so as to startle onlookers). The silver people were especially popular, says Grant: "Most of the planners had never seen them before." She admits that she hadn't either—until a recent visit to Key West's famously funky Mallory Square.
The weekend wasn't all massages and Merlot. There was educational content, too, both serious (industry experts leading seminars on trends in meetings and on catering to Generations X and Y) and not so serious (cooking lessons and wine classes). But mostly it was what Grant calls " 'you' time": "When planners are here for their meetings, there's no time to enjoy the property the way they would want to," she says. "What was key was getting them to see the resort in a more appreciative light by giving them much to choose from—they could do what they wanted, or just relax."
No Hot Air At presstime, the event had more than paid for itself. Grant says she's already booked a $100,000 piece of business thanks to the program: a 2006 gathering for 300 members of the Red Hat Society, a social organization for women aged 50 and over.
And the perfect end to a day of seminars, championship golf, Champagne samplings, and caviar facials? How about a panoramic view of Indian Lakes' 300 acres? "The idea was to have everyone come out to the golf course at sunset for a hot-air balloon ride," Callan explains. Alas, it was too windy, "so we had to kill the balloon deal." Not that it mattered much: "We had so many other things going on, it was like, 'Let's go back and have some more wine!' "