Michael SloyanThe Destination Ambassador

A Guide To Corporate MICE Familiarisation Trips

The Familiarisation Trip or FAM Trip as it has become known, is a very powerful tool for showcasing the very best elements of your destination and all that it has to offer the corporate event organiser. The ultimate objective of a FAM Trip is to leave a long term, positive impression on the delegates that will eventually see them bringing their events to your destination.

So, what do we need to do to ensure that the Fam Trip is successful?.. We need to construct a detailed plan. We need to plan every single moment of the FAM Trip, from the first invitations to the last departure flight and then on to the follow up feedback and ongoing potential client liaison. A FAM Trip is, after all, an important business investment. An investment shared by the destination as a whole and each of its contributing partners: hotels, restaurants, conference & exhibition venues, activity hosts.

I have written this guide in the hope that it will assist you in creating a successful FAM Trip, and I do so from the perspective of a corporate buyer with many years of experience in organising corporate conferences, meetings, seminars & exhibitions. On behalf of The British Business Club and latterly as CEO of The World Business Fair I have experienced many FAM Trips, some were very successful and well organised, some absolutely chaotic from start to finish. I know exactly what corporate buyers are looking for when visiting a destination, what ticks their boxes and what leaves them cold. My objective with this guide is to help you ensure a successful, well organised FAM Trip that delivers a sound return on your investment.

So let’s get started!

Contents:

Partners

Delegates

Itinerary

Pre Arrival

The Final Day

Post Event

Overview

“The Best preparation for good work tomorrow is good work today!”

Partners: I will assume from the outset that you already have a selected group of partners involved in the delivery of your proposed FAM Trip. What I would advise is that you ensure that everyone involved is equally committed to the event. From the moment your delegates arrive, to the moment they leave, they need to be fully immersed in the positive benefits of the destination. That means that all the staff in partner hotels and participating venues realise the true importance of the FAM Trip as a showcase event. The FAM TRIP is a very short window of opportunity to sell the full potential of the destination, and for all of the partners it must be a collective TEAM EVENT!

Delegates:

Choose your delegates very carefully. Do not ever send out mass invitations on a first come first served basis. There is absolutely no harm in employing a selection process to decide on who you choose as a delegate for your FAM Trip. A simple questionnaire can derive all the information required to filter out the very best delegates who are more likely to be in a genuine position to invest their future events in your destination. A copy of an RFP will give you a clear picture of what they are looking for in a destination, and how you can fulfil their needs.

Once you have decided who to invite do not miss out on the opportunity to gather as much information as possible on the delegate, their interests, past & future events. Use the invitation as a gentle fact finding mission.

The Itinerary:

This is the major stumbling block for FAM Trip organisers. It is the pivotal element that decides the success or failure of the whole event. Finding that all important balance of hotel & venue visits and combining it with cultural/social attractions. The temptation is to put the delegates into a bus and to fill every hour of the day with hotels, hotels, conference rooms, hotels and more hotels… believe me when I tell you that this actually happens all too often, and the end result is bored, exhausted and disgruntled delegates who will not return.

Hoteliers are very important partners in any FAM Trip and they deserve a return on their investment. The trick is to compliment the hotel visits with coffee breaks and lunch breaks. Delegates do not need to see every single type of room on offer in each property, 2 different suites is more than enough. It is better to let them leave each hotel property with a fresh feeling of the excellent hospitality and good service on offer, pictures of the rooms are freely available on the internet via hotel website, tourist guides and trip advisor etc.

Mixing the hotels with cultural sites and activities will add a flavour of enjoyable spice to the FAM Trip. Event organisers need to know that future delegates to their particular own events will enjoy themselves at the end of each day. They know that the social element of any conference or exhibition is what make delegates come back the following year. Show your FAM Trip delegates the best social/cultural side of your destination. Especially on the final day.

Break up each day with a good array of coffee breaks, lunch breaks and bio breaks so as not to fatigue the delegates and, very importantly, give them plenty of time to be back at their hotel to freshen up for the evenings events and to catch up on emails and phone calls. Never forget that they are only human, and they are in a foreign environment. They will need time each day to rest and reflect on the day’s events.

A useful idea is to have a professional facilitator on hand who can help to positively kick-start the FAM Trip on the first day and liaise with the delegates, encouraging them to reflect on each day’s events and to elicit useful feedback.

It is always a good idea to have a drinks reception on the first evening of the FAM trip that will allow the delegates to meet representatives from each of the participating partner venues. It allows the possibility of a brief presentation that explains the planned itinerary and the things the delegates can look forward to during the FAM Trip. It also gives

the partner representatives the extra opportunity to promote their venue or property to each delegate on a one to one basis.

We must never lose sight of the fact that the FAM Trip is a business investment from everyone’s perspective. The destination and its partners are heavily invested in making the event a success. Likewise, the delegates have invested their time and energy into the FAM Trip with a view to investing their money in the form of an event at the destination. Every opportunity to showcase high levels of professionalism and excellent customer care and service must be exploited to the full.

Pre Arrival:

So… You have selected and invited your delegates. You have collaborated with your partners to create an enjoyable, professional and memorable itinerary, and now it is time to prepare for the arrival of your delegates.

It is paramount that you ensure that your delegates are picked up from the airport in comfortable and timely fashion. Please do not make the fatal mistake made by one particular convention bureau (who shall remain unnamed) of parking a coach at the airport for the morning to collect all of the delegates at the same time. Thereby having some delegates sitting waiting on the coach for 3 hours whilst waiting for the final plane to arrive with the last delegates. If at all possible it is wise to invest in individual cars to collect the delegates as they arrive and whisk them to the hotel. Again, where possible, try and arrange a pre- check in arrangement with the hotel so that the delegate’s arrival is smooth and stress free.

A welcome letter waiting for each delegate in their hotel room is a nice touch. The letter can also act as an invitation to the evening drinks welcome reception. Combining that with a small gift is advisable, but most importantly with a copy of the itinerary for the FAM Trip so that they know exactly what is happening from moment one. Another idea is to give them a full list of their fellow delegates so that they can easily begin networking and connecting.

Now The FAM Trip is now officially underway!

Engagement:

Your FAM Trip team can now use the welcome reception to begin the task of engaging with the delegates on a personal level. Getting to know each of them on first name terms is very important and is also psychologically very comforting for each of the delegates.

It would be wise to give your FAM Trip a live social media outlet such as a Facebook page that would encourage and enable delegates to share their experiences on the FAM Trip almost to a live audience of colleagues and associates back at their offices.

A photographic record of the event is an important tool. Encouraging your delegates to share the images of the FAM Trip creates a self-fulfilling marketing vehicle. People like to share good news and experiences and social media makes this an instant opportunity.

During the course of the FAM Trip it is always wise to get daily feedback on the events. To do this you can use feedback forms (not so popular) or the facilitator. Your FAM Trip team do need to take time to single out the delegates individually and draw feedback from them. Whatever the feedback is, good or bad, it is important and lessons can be learned for this and future FAM Trip events.

The Final Day:

Now here is the big one! You had the opportunity to make a great impression on day one when your FAM Trip delegates first arrived. Now you have to close the show with a bang.

All too often I have seen these events end badly with the FAM Trip team saying their goodbyes on the last evening and the delegates sitting miserably in a hotel lounge waiting for their lift to the airport. This is a waste of a good opportunity to sell the destination right up until it is time for the delegate to head to the airport.

The best advice is to have the delegates check out in the morning after breakfast and use the morning as normal to do a couple of hotel/venue visits and then to bring the delegates back to a cultural venue for a goodbye lunch that will be shared with representatives of each of the FAM Trip partners. Over the course of lunch there is the opportunity to project on a screen a music montage of photographs of each day of the FAM Trip and each of the delegates taking part in the various visits and activities.

Give the delegates a fun time to end the event with. Perhaps some music or a magician visiting tables. Then you can close off the event with a brief speech, thank the delegates for their attendance and input to a successful event, and finally present them with a small memorable parting gift. Let them leave your destination with a smile on their faces!

Post Event:

So there we have it, the delegates have left, the FAM Trip has ended… But that is not the end of the job by a long shot! This is where your FAM Trip team kick into action. Each delegate should get a personal email thanking them for their attendance and their valuable involvement in making the FAM Trip a success. Included in that email will be a link to where (Facebook Page) the delegate can see all of the photographs of the event and (most importantly) a link to an online survey (Surveymonkey etc.,) of the event that will help you gather feedback on the event as a whole.

It is a good opportunity to request an RFP of their forthcoming events if you don’t already have one. From that point forward you can contact them intermittently. This is where you use your best marketing materials as a reminder of their FAM Trip. These gentle reminders will work to your advantage when they are making the final decisions on the destination for their next event.

One final thing. On the invitation profile you will probably have a passport record and birth date?.... Everybody smiles when they get a surprise birthday card….

“You only get one chance to make a good first impression”

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This guide was written and published on Slideshare by Michael Sloyan and is intended for free distribution and download by Convention Bureaux, Tourism Departments and principals of the Meetings, Incentive, Conference & Events Industry. Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information on how I can help promote your destination directly to the corporate MICE buyers of the UK & Europe:

Michael SloyanThe Destination Ambassador

Tel: +44 (0) 1922 477411Mob: +44 (0) 7426 090025

Email: michael@michaelsloyan.comWeb: www.michaelsloyan.com

Twitter: @MichaelSloyan