tcook052

All members, new or old, are encouraged to offer their opinions on this matter but ultimately only Flyertalk Talk Board members will cast a vote on this proposed new forum.

TalkBoard is a User Advisory Council consisting of members of the community who provide direction and input on issues that affect the community as a whole. There is more about the body here.

Welcome to FT and please keep participating in this forum so the TB gets to hear your opinion on topics up for debate.

SkiAdcock

He was more eloquent than I in explaining it all

Cheers.

Pegasus23

I cannot imagine why, if you have a group function, you would not want an experienced professional company with a track record doing the planning for you. Do you really want to bring anything less than excellence to your function?

Will this proposed Flyertalk forum become the Junior College for future group travel employment? or will proposed forum be a depository of information for programmers to morph into apps; eroding the Professional Group planners?

Will professionals be required to register as professionals? Will professionals be allowed to troll for clients? I.B. How will you get a cut? If frequent members of this forum suggest and recommend various companies do they get any spiffs or kickbacks?

Things to consider or not....It might be a fun experiment.

Tartegnin

This is a great idea - wholeheartedly supported.^

SkiAdcock

Are you a professional planner? Sounds like you're worried that this might cut into p.p.'s livelihoods, which I doubt this forum will do.

Can't speak for other FT or TB members, but I served on the BOD for some professional associations on the local level (still do). Some had monthly meetings, some had full weekend meetings, some had full week-long meetings. They didn't have budgets for professional group planners, and I am making the assumption that's not unique to those associations. So oftentimes it falls to an association member or BOD member to do the organizing.

I can think of many times where I had questions, needed info, and so a forum like this would have been (and will be if I have to do it in the future again) helpful to me when I was doing the planning.

FTers are pretty good about identifying folk who 'troll' for clients & either letting other FTers know or mods; same with spin-offs/spiffs. The only 'cut' IB gets on anything is $$ from advertisers on FT. That's common practice for most IBBs.

BTW - we've now heard from some who are concerned that this might erode possible use of professional planners and those who are concerned that this will get filled with every Joe/Jane who's planning a weekend trip to LAS. So I'd say it's covered both sides pretty evenly

Cheers.

Pegasus23

[QUOTE=SkiAdcock;17937372]Are you a professional planner? Sounds like you're worried that this might cut into p.p.'s livelihoods, which I doubt this forum will do.

Can't speak for other FT or TB members, but I served on the BOD for some professional associations on the local level (still do). Some had monthly meetings, some had full weekend meetings, some had full week-long meetings. They didn't have budgets for professional group planners, and I am making the assumption that's not unique to those associations. So oftentimes it falls to an association member or BOD member to do the organizing.

I can think of many times where I had questions, needed info, and so a forum like this would have been (and will be if I have to do it in the future again) helpful to me when I was doing the planning.

FTers are pretty good about identifying folk who 'troll' for clients & either letting other FTers know or mods; same with spin-offs/spiffs. The only 'cut' IB gets on anything is $$ from advertisers on FT. That's common practice for most IBBs.

BTW - we've now heard from some who are concerned that this might erode possible use of professional planners and those who are concerned that this will get filled with every Joe/Jane who's planning a weekend trip to LAS. So I'd say it's covered both sides pretty evenly

Cheers.[/QUOTE

Is there a provision to have a 90-120 day trial forum? Nothing like a pilot project to shake out assumptions, and diminish taking sides, etc. Let the post count of the new forum, Mods, FT board members, Members, IB get muddy and see what works.

Also, to fellow Flyertalkers, I am not & have no association or financial interest in Group Travel Co's, arrangers, etc. I pay for all my Travel. I prefer in house arrangements for meetings, conferences, conventions. However, there are complex situations... it makes sense, to use the services of Planning Professionals, especially in Countries where local customs, contacts, liability & fun is unknown.

Jenbel

Hmm, it depends. I volunteer for a charity. I am, this year, tasked with organising a training day for up to 100 people. I am not a professional event planner, but I do have the advantage that this is an annual event.

Given the FT dos I've organised in the past, I'm finding the logistics of it a cake walk. I could probably throw in a group dinner, to be paid for the attendees, before I start to break out a sweat!

The difficult bit is in organising the training topics, not the actual event itself.

So you might find that there are people on here involved in event planning where they don't use professionals but are doing it themselves and that, from what I've read is the target market. I've already had discussions with friends previously about maximising hotel points when they have been organising company events.

That said, I'm not sure I'd ever use this forum. My event is locally based, and has no opportunity to earn miles. But I just wanted to counter the view that professionals were the only way to go with event planning. You've only got to look at some of the FT dos to see that...

And some of your questions have been answered already in Community - one person found an online company which allowed the purchase of event tickets on line, and the use of that quickly spread through the do organiser community. Sadly, they've priced themselves out of the market now, but where people identify tools which help them, then you have to allow those ideas to be shared. The early adopters of Eventbrite - and I was the first I think, although someone sent me the link - received nothing for bringing it to the forum's attention - well, except for more easily organised dos!

Cindyandmocha

I think its a great idea. I just got back from a group trip. We also meet annually (roughly 70 people).

If nothing else, it would be good to hear feedback from other planners on what resort/destination they liked and why or why not. The good, the bad and the ugly, so to speak. Were the event rooms soundproofed enough or did the salsa dancing next door drown out your speaker, did the tipping overwhelm your party if it was suppose to be all-inclusive, who was generous with perks and who was easy to work with.

Some of that kind of feedback you really want from the people who have been there for an event. The average "trip advisor" report for the most part only tells you the individual experience -- it may not tell you anything about what its like as a group event.

Pegasus23

Thanks for your thoughts, and many other Flyertalker's contributions too. In reading some of your suggested threads, I found Tom911 also mentioned, long before me, trial periods for forums. My current leaning.

tom911

Yes, I have mentioned that before. In the past the creation of forums has mostly revolved around demonstrated need, usually posts about the topic scattered around other forums in sufficient numbers. Sometimes, as in the case of travel planning, you may not be able to find posts on the topic in other forums, so a test run of such a forum would be a good idea to see if there is interest among the members.

One problem we have, though, is that there is no criteria, in terms of quantity or quality, as to when to close down a forum. The only forum that I can recall being closed down was the Senior Forum, and I thought the Talk Board might set up some criteria after that decision, but I haven't seen it.

So, if the Talk Board does decide to give a Travel Planning a trial run, hopefully they would also come up with some criteria to gauge whether it is successful or not after a fixed period, and keep it open, or close it down, based on that criteria.

goalie

Which are the very reasons why am against this in its current form-too many unanswered questions up front

bdcobbs

I believe it would be a good idea, it gives everyone a chance to share ideas and provide some much needed feedback.

brkandjfk

Having owned and operated an event planning and travel agency for many years (until I sold it), I can tell you that yes, this will create the amateur event planner and reduce the reliance on professional planners. It's also going to have an impact over time on how deals are crafted and negotiated.

Do I expect that it'll make a large scale difference any time soon? No. Do I think that the hotels that already peruse the boards will begin to realize that they cannot continue to offer better deals to professional event planners who bring them repeat business? Yes... As time goes on things will change to being more "event based" rather than "client based" - which I won't argue for or against. (BTW, isn't this what we see happening with FF programs in general - profitability is being rewarded over loyalty more and more.)

Professional event planners are afforded discounts and better terms because frankly they know how to run an event, what to be prepared for, how to accommodate unintended consequences, how to reduce the labor hours of the hotel / venue, and for many other reasons. Professional planners bring their own insurance, reducing the liability of the venue. Professional planners have worked with the individual vendors time and time again and know who has to be "parented" and who has to be left be for the event to be a success. I could go on and on....

Having said all that... And specifically on whether there should be a place here for these discussions... I don't think it's incumbent on FT to be concerned with whether they impact the event planning world. FT is here to provide a service to it's members - that of bringing information from those who know to those who don't. I fail to see how adding a place for members to share this type of information couldn't benefit the members of FT, and thus from the FT perspective, I would think it would be an easy question (vote) to answer...

Best of luck with the new topic...

SkiAdcock

Agree. And thanks for your perspective in the rest of your post.

Cheers.

thehoax

I agree. It sounds like a good idea.