Meeting planners turn online

Les Goldberg’s audiovisual staging company, LMG, takes over as the non-exclusive contractor for the Orange County, Fla., Convention Center this month.

At first blush, the most noteworthy aspect of the deal is that the Orlando meeting facility is the nation’s second-largest, with an impressive 1.4 million square feet of space.

But look closer. Goldberg isn’t gearing up for the new business in a traditional way. In what is likely the shape of things to come for the meeting industry, he’s building out his Web site and publishing a CD-ROM with the center’s room specs.

“Our site is designed to handle any query that a meeting planner might have,” Goldberg says. “It answers questions like ‘How big is that screen?’ and ‘How big is that room?’ Those are the kinds of questions you used to have to call someone for.”

Goldberg may not realize it, but he’s at the forefront of a trend in the meeting planning business that could spread to other parts of interactive travel.

While the Internet has made enormous strides toward becoming a must-have tool that meeting professionals employ for venue selection, it’s made few inroads in offering planners technical help.

Until now.

Take Denis Bouchard, a vice president at Raid Multimedia in Montreal. His company sets up webcast coverage for clients such as Teleglobe and Oracle. Even though many of his customers are technically sophisticated, he says the last place they’d turn for help is a Web site.

“They’re more likely to pick up the phone. It seems to be a faster way to get answers for them,” he says.

Bouchard is working on adding more interactive functions and diagrams to his Web site that would let meeting planners get help with technology-related queries. The goal is to cut down the average length of phone calls meeting planners make.

“An image is worth a thousand words,” he says.

Bouchard will need all the charm he’s got to persuade meeting planners that the phone is, well, passe. Ann Hill, who handles executive meetings in Windsor, CA, counts herself among the skeptics.

“Turning to the Internet for hotel or destination information is one thing,” she says. “But when I need information about an AV system, I pick up the phone and call someone. It’s a lot easier than paging through lots of information on the Web.”

3M is among the innovators in offering online help. It features product assistance, monthly Q&A columns, and a list of FAQs about meeting practices on its 3M Meeting Network site. Manager Michael Begeman admits it’s been a struggle to get meeting professionals to shift their thinking from real-world to virtual when a problem comes up.

“The meeting industry,” he gripes, “is still very much in the 800-number and fax mode.”

All of which isn’t deterring suppliers from quietly trying to wean meeting planners off the phone. Toni Stroud, a technical sales manager at SCLM Software in Stewartstown, PA, which publishes high-end diagramming software MeetingMatrix, is one of them.

She says Web forums are most appropriate for questions that require a longer, more thoughtful, answer. But, she adds, there are also ways of answering immediate questions through FAQs or chat sessions.

The progress is slow, but it will click eventually. When it does, there’s little doubt this kind of assistance will spread to other parts of interactive travel.

Imagine a booking engine taking over more of the duties of a real-life travel agent, everything from dispensing relevant travel advice to helping a customer with a seat assignment. The reduced phone bills and personnel expenses alone would be enough to make the bean counters perk up.

For the rest of us, the changes could be even more far-reaching.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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