Higher Ed Gaining More Important Role In Planning Profession

Want to perceive the future of meeting and event planning? Check out the current crop of student planners at colleges and universities with planning and hospitality programs. What they're learning today will be standard practice tomorrow.

"Education is changing my expectations of the profession," said Dawn Penfold, president of the Meeting Candidate Network, a New York-based national recruiting firm for meeting professionals. "I expect new planners to know far more than I did starting out. People are finally choosing to become planners just like they choose to become accountants."

Planners who have never filed, or filled, an electronic request-for-proposal form are flirting with obsolescence, warned Leonard Hoyle, president of Accolade Communications and part-time professor at George Washington University's Institute of Tourism Studies. So are planners who rely on instinct over market research or a handshake over a carefully crafted contract.

"We're concentrating on topics such as market research, motivating audiences, defining and meeting attendee needs, and refining legal issues," Hoyle said. "If you make a planning mistake today, you can put your association or company through a lawsuit with the potential to destroy the organization."

Corporations and associations are coming to that same realization, said Lalia Rach, dean of the Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism at New York University. "We will continue to see planning evolve in importance," she predicted. "Organizations are recognizing that meetings are too important to leave to amateurs and clericals. The value of professional meeting planning is spreading throughout the business world."

If that isn't enough to scare current planners back to school, it should be. New planners coming out of college-level hospitality programs already know the industry, noted Barbara Connell, vice president of education for the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA). They may lack hands-on experience, but they have the academic foundation to leapfrog the competition.

"The level of entry education has increased exponentially," Connell said. "We are seeing graduates with a better understanding of how meetings fit into the real business world. They understand finance, negotiation, technology, organizations. Professional organizations need to beef up their programs to help today's planners catch up and keep up."

Meeting Professionals International sees the same education gap. "Most planners in the market today have not had strong academic training for their profession," said MPI president and CEO Ed Griffin. "But the fast pace of change in planning and event management, coupled with the demands of understanding technology, dictates that you can't survive, much less succeed, with outmoded skills."



Back to School

"We're seeing more non-traditional students, students who are older, preparing for second careers in planning," said Katie Davin, assistant professor of hospitality management at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I. "Most are already in the industry in some way. They're coming out with a degree as well as real-world experience."

George Washington University also is seeing more experienced students. Most are relatively young, and most already have at least a B.A., said Joe Goldblatt, director of GWU's International Institute of Tourism Studies. Many are coming to meeting planning with a master's degree in some other subject.

Industrywide, he said, 9 percent of planners have a master's degree or higher, double the national average. Enrollment trends at GWU and other schools suggest that the number of planners with advanced degrees will continue to rise.

"Today's planning students are highly educated and computer literate," Goldblatt said. "The future of event management is clearly web-based, from RFPs onward. That will make competing for jobs all the harder if you don't have those technology skills."

The scene is similar at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where Patti Shock is chair of UNLV's Tourism and Convention Administration Department, probably the largest meeting and event planning program in the country.

"Technology is already revolutionizing the industry," Shock said. "Our students are much more technologically savvy than today's planners."

UNLV students are learning to design event setups on screen, fly through electronic site visits, evaluate spaces they have never seen in person via virtual reality, negotiate contracts via email, and manage events with web-based tools.

"All the major software companies are donating product so we can teach our students with the same programs hotels, convention centers and planning firms are using to create and manage real events," Shock said.

Efficient planners are already swapping plane tickets and site visits for virtual visits. Electronic design programs make it a snap to check the visual impact of new tablecloth colors or sight lines from any spot in a room.

"Electronic floor plans are already accurate enough to choose a site," said Susan Schwartz, president of independent show management company ConvExx and on-call professor at UNLV. "I can see what's usable space versus what isn't without ever leaving my office. There simply never was a set of courses like this before. This kind of information has never been available in any systematic form before. We're giving new planners a very specific, very professional base to work from. Current planners are going to have to work just to keep up."

Hotels and event venues are going to have to work harder, too. Planners who grew up finding answers on the web are going to expect the same quick answers from suppliers.

"Students today take the web for granted," Davin warned. "They have little patience with having to call hotels and convention centers for information. They're appalled when they can't get the information they need from a website. That will translate into very strong preferences once they start making site recommendations and selection decisions."



Lifelong Learning

Today's students are introducing other new elements into planning. For starters, the profession is becoming more international. UNLV and other schools report heavy enrollment from Korea, Taiwan and other international players in the meetings and events industry.

"They're coming here specifically to learn the American way of doing conventions," said UNLV assistant professor Curtis Love, a former education director for PCMA. "They see tremendous job growth at home, but they are also creating a much more international atmosphere that will encourage more U.S. organizations to look abroad for venues."

Site-selection preferences also may become more varied. Johnson & Wales, among other programs, is touting the advantages of secondary and tertiary cities for many events. "We're trying to open students' eyes," Davin said. "Instead of choosing just between Chicago, New York, Orlando and Las Vegas, we're pointing them to Cleveland and Charlotte. They're pleasantly surprised at the better room rates, access and facilities."