Bob Andelman Articles Archive

As belts tighten, the Caribbean's proximity to the continental United States make its islan countries more attractive than ever before for an other-worldly meeting break. The islands offer sun, sand and exotica for a fraction of the cost of Europe. They're more attractive as an incentive destination than meeting at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and, some planners say, more cost-effective. But like any trip abroad, it pays to do your homework and benefit from the experiences of those who have gone before you.

Enchanting as the islands of the Caribbean may be, only the foolhardy charge in without being fully prepared for disaster. Because for every similarity to the States, there is an utter contradiction to be found in these tropical islands. And these perceived drawbacks get bigger and bigger by word of mouth, some undeservedly.

Luxury
At corporations across the U.S., the island nations of the Caribbean are getting second and third looks from previously preferred Hawaii and Florida for their warm weather, mid-winter corporate and incentive meetings.

Terry Christensen, manager of meeting services for the Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, Iowa, took a FAM tour of St. Thomas and was favorably impressed. The resort where he stayed was the kind of quality property he would reserve for his people anywhere in the world.

"The Caribbean is becoming a more attractive destination for us," Christensen says. "We're taking a look at places like that, places we haven't been. We've been to Hawaii and Europe we've had agents and management who've been to the Caribbean on personal trips encourage us to look at it."

When National Life Insurance Company of Vermont inquired about where its top reps preferred to go on a future incentive trip, they ruled out the Midwest as boring. Orlando everybody had been there already. Instead, the company will take its top 25 producers, the Chairman's Council, to the Four Seasons on the island of Nevis next April. It's an offshore destination which offers tax incentives and incentive appeal without overseas expenses.

"Yes, it's hard to get there, but that makes it attractive," says Scott Uselding, National Life's conference specialist. "We will give our people an experience that will be hard to duplicate and isn't that the whole idea of incentive meetings?"

Bob Shaw has been to the Caribbean six times, including a May 1993 incentive meeting to Paradise Island for 82 of his company's top producers.

"The location has a certain amount of draw," says Royal Life Canada's vice president of sales and marketing and meeting. Shaw booked 40 rooms for his meeting and wound up using 41, an increase over previous conferences. "When you talk about Paradise Island and the Bahamas, images come to mind that are appealing to people. We don't have the ability to travel worldwide, so we look for a place that has some pull to it. Paradise Island has that."

Companies that do business with government agencies are more careful than other private industries in choosing meeting sites. Sometimes appearances can scuttle Caribbean trips even when they're more cost-effective than domestic meetings.

"No one in government wants to read about their Jamaica meeting in the headlines of the newspaper," says George McLain, manager of business planning for General Electric Aircraft Engines in Evendale, Ohio. "The way I would deal with that is to show the actual cost to show it does meet our business needs."

The Caribbean wins the hearts and wallets of Cincom Systems of Cincinnati, a developer and seller of computer software with representatives as near as Canada and as far as Hong Kong. Cincom's 40 top sales reps went to Nassau for its annual incentive meeting in 1992, San Juan, Puerto Rico in '93 and heads for St. Martin next year.

"Our people seem to like the sun and sand," says Alice Imfeld, secretary to the president of Cincom.


Hasta Manana
One of the more notorious challenges of meeting planning in the islands is the so-called "manana" tomorrow mentality. You want it done today, they'll get it done manana. Get upset all you want, they're not going to move any faster.

"I had a lot concern about that in Acapulco," one planner recalls. "The whole hotel staff was so laid-back and casual. They didn't wear uniforms or suits. In the advance planning we told them what we liked and they said, 'Yeah, mon, yeah.' But they delivered. They did everything."

Many of the islands have made great strides in improving their quality of services. Bob Shaw found a tremendous overall improvement in response to the needs of his 1993 meeting on Paradise Island, compared to a decade ago.

"I think they have done a tremendous job in educating folks toward tourism," he says. "I found a tremendous difference since the last time I was there. The service is better, prompter. I noticed a difference even in the native folk I passed on the street, who would say 'Hello' or nod or smile. Not just hotel staff, either."

To a one, meeting planners say that the same hotel chains they rely on stateside Hyatts and Hiltons, Wyndhams and Four Seasons, Princesses and Marriotts work even harder in the islands. Their standards are just as high in Nassau as Dallas. If those companies give a franchise to local investors, they make sure their reputation is upheld.

How to solve the manana problem when it does arise?

"I deal with it the same way there as here. I look for another person," says Marie Vanderbeck, president of Southern Exposure (formerly Select Corporate Meetings) in Pompton Lakes, N.J. "I have too much to do. My business depends so much on other people performing that if I get a sense of other people not performing, I'll turn around."

Manana is not necessarily a bad way of life, especially for a bunch of corporate types who need a vacation. And be aware that the more you and your group play into the Ugly American Syndrome, the farther away manana may be. Of course, top producers who've earned expensive island getaways get to where there are by flashing a little attitude. You may be playing fire trying to contain them.

Best bet: Hire a destination management company on the island where your meeting will be held, particularly for dealing with Customs and transportation challenges in non-U.S. territories. Let them buffer between you and off-resort providers.

"There is an image of the islands that none of us work at the same pace as the industrial world," says Noel Sloley, president of Jamaica Tours Ltd. in Montego Bay. "So those of us who are successful here have to work twice as hard."

Sloley confirms that some meeting planners will encounter people in the islands who don't move with enough urgency. He says that's because they don't understand the need. If you tell a Customs agent he's tying up papers you need, he may not understand. But tell him your ice cream is melting, that he'll act upon.

"People like myself will take that work and worry away," Sloley says. "If a meeting is starting at 11, we say (to service workers) we're starting at 10 so everyone will be ready at 11. It's a practical matter of adjusting your culture to the needs of your client."

Include the DMC in all your advance planning, even in those aspects that are out of their purview. You never know when they might know someone who knows someone who can smooth your way. Send a schedule of arrivals attendees and equipment ahead of time to the DMC so everyone and every thing is picked up at the airport and delivered safely to your hotel.

"You have to re-set your watch to Bahamian time," Shaw advises. "That's what I say to my people. They say, 'But, Bob, it's not a different time zone!' No, but the minute-hand goes a little slower than big-city folks are used to. Doesn't make it bad, just different. And if you're down there on a conference, you shouldn't be in a big friggin' rush, anyhow."

Safety
Self-contained resorts in Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas offer everything your attendees might need multiple dining choices, water sports, golf, tennis, shopping and live entertainment at night.

"The things we did were all on Paradise Island," Bob Shaw says. "I'm not sure how keen I would be walking around Nassau at night. But I'd rather by there than Miami or Fort Lauderdale."

Sandy Gould wants to plan a Caribbean executive board meeting in 1995 for 40 people at Michigan Physicians Mutual Liability Company. But Nevis proved too difficult to get to and Puerto Rico worries her. "People say, 'Why would you want to go to Puerto Rico? They all say, 'High crime.' I'm trying to find out if that's true," she says.

She was surprised when even the San Juan convention bureau told her that visitors have to be careful when they leave tourist areas. She's still considering San Juan, but widened her search to include the U.S. Virgin Islands and Cancun.

People being people, they're going to be curious about what lies beyond the high walls and secure perimeters of the resort. That's where all the planning in the world can't save your precious Caribbean meeting from disaster and disappointment.

One company took 700 people to Jamaica in January 1992. It was a complicated experience. Attendees complained of walking down main streets and being offered pot and sexual favors. But the weirdest and scariest moment involved a charter boat.

One of the group's vice presidents circumvented the convention's DMC to hire a yacht. He wanted to take his department on a black-tie cruise and save a few bucks, too. But something went wrong. He booked the boat sight unseen and, when he finally did see it, the craft was a whole lot less than advertised more like a garbage scow. The veep canceled, which didn't sit too well with the captain.

The last night of the convention, a big party was held at the resort. All 700 attendees were there, as was the ship's captain who stood 6-foot, 8-inches and his bodyguards. They threatened the veep 5-foot, 8-inches with bodily harm if he didn't pay up. He refused. Hotel security refused to remove the man and his associates; he was too well connected and unafraid of anybody.

In the end, the veep paid the man. The group's meeting planner and DMC told him, point-blank, that they didn't think he'd get off the island otherwise. The next morning, hotel security escorted the veep to the airport and didn't leave his side until he was seated on his plane.

"When I'm selling people on Jamaica," says Wally Sumner, president of Incentive Dynamics in Santa Ana, California, "I say it's a beautiful place and as long as you're at the resort, you're going to have a good time. But I don't recommend spending a lot of time in Ocho Rios."


Poverty
One exec felt uneasy about what he saw along the road to his resort destination: severe poverty. "That's not a good thing when you have a four-day incentive vacation, seeing little kids running around begging for money or selling drugs," he says. "On the other hand, it's just part of the local flavor."

"It's just like some of the United States," says another planner. "You see the poverty that will bother some of the attendees. It is a depressing situation. You get that twinge of guilt. You've got people going to incentive meetings, you're trying to treat them like kings and queens, and it's kind of a downer you have to deal with. It's a factor we would have to consider in choosing a site."

Many planners and DMCs deal with the concern head-on. Some place guides on welcome shuttle buses to talk about how the major economic factor on the island is tourism. They acknowledge the blight, low wages and poverty, but encourage attendees that their tourism dollars go a long way to giving the locals a leg up on improving their standard of living.

"There is poverty," destination manager Noel Sloley says. "But tourism dollars do help us tackle our social and economic problems."


Accessibility
Many Caribbean islands are just 75 minutes by air from Miami, making the distance convenient for one day, overnight or extended meetings. Some airlines fly direct or non-stop into San Juan and Nassau; most use Miami as a hub for connecting continental and international flights.

One executive who prefers to remain anonymous recently considered Montego Bay, Jamaica as a site for an annual convention that attracts 900 people. He decided against the island after a site inspection. It didn't seem possible to him that his swell of attendees could be smoothly transported, even from the airport to their resort destination. Narrow roads and harrowing bus rides convinced him.

"It's a long bus ride," he complains. "The heat and the humidity what they call air conditioning is a fan."

He praised the service, courtesy and training of the resort staff where he considered meeting. He noted the political stability that has come to Jamaica after years of unrest. But transportation posed an insurmountable problem.

The islands don't have sophisticated road systems. They wouldn't know what a highway was. Then again, if you're going troppo, you're not looking for parkways and turnpikes. "You have to drive from the Nassau airport through downtown and you're going to get caught in traffic," Bob Shaw says. "But that's what the islands are to me."

Sandy Gould wanted to schedule a meeting in Nevis. The vice president and executive assistant of Michigan Physician's Mutual Liability Company flew from Detroit for a site visit and had a terrible time with the flights. The airline which invited her with a free ticket treated her party "like second-class citizens." And she was worn down by all the connections.

One meeting planner's plaint about accessibility is another's delight. Some planners look for hard-to-get-to locales for their meetings.

Nearly 200 leading producers for the AMEX Life Assurance Company were feted to an incentive meeting at the Four Seasons on Nevis in April 1992 a very hard to get to island. A typical travel itinerary required participants to fly to Miami, endure delays in connecting to St. Kitts and finally take a boat to Nevis. No problem.

"We chose Nevis because we were looking for places where our group could be the only thing happening. The year before, we had a cruise ship in Tahiti to ourselves," says Barry Wolpa, director of marketing. "I needed a place my people could spend time together, have a feeling of family and find it exciting."

Nevis was quiet, low-key and very native. "My boss said we're only going there if you can make something happen. It was a challenge because there's nothing there," Wolpa says. "There was nothing the Four Seasons was unable to deliver on. For me, that was key. Because my people went through hell to get there."

The Four Seasons maintains relationships with ground operators and plantation owners on Nevis to share its guests for dine-arounds and sight-seeing. The resort supports of other businesses on the island. When the group arrived 90 minutes late for its lunch reservation, the plantation hostess brought out a round of drinks for everyone then laid out a fresh lunch buffet.

"Our people were welcomed everywhere," Wolpa says. "Every mini-bus was on time. Everything everything was pre-planned. There was nothing left to chance when we got there. We ran a very tight schedule. It was a good trip; I have fond memories of it."

Customs
Going through Customs in Jamaica "was a real pain," one planner says, "even though I was a guest of Air Jamaica and they expedited that for me." It took him two hours to be passed through. He worried about the jam that several hundred convention-goers arriving simultaneously might cause when the airline wasn't available to smooth things over.

Blame 300 years of British rule for the stagnation at Jamaican Customs, says Noel Sloley.

"You had a civil service trained to keep things out of Jamaica," he says, "especially when the terms of trade were that you would only buy things from the British or other Commonwealth countries. Suddenly, the world has gotten smaller and your trading partners are other people but you have still retained many of your Customs regulations. So a businessman coming in with a computer, that is looked at as something that he might sell and corrupt our people. It is not looked on as a vital working tool. It is a mindset we are breaking down. But we have to be careful because duties are very important to our government."

How do you deal with the problem? At least 21 days before your group arrives in the islands, send the DMC a list of all the items you'll be bringing. Don't be afraid to over-estimate. If there are 100 people expected, for example, list 100 computers. List brochures, A/V equipment, whatever. Tell your DMC to arrange for waivers ahead of time.

Cindy Luther, vice president of marketing and communications for Design Benefit Plans (formerly National Group Marketing) in Schaumberg, Illinois, needed a unique, over-sized silver screen for a 3-D slide show she planned for a meeting at the Wyndham Rose Hall Beach and Country Club in Montego Bay, Jamaica. First it was too big for every shipping company she contacted. Then it arrived at Customs after 5 p.m. closing time. Unfortunately, she needed it set up and ready to go by 9 a.m. the next morning exactly the time Customs would re-open. Through some sleight-of-hand by her DMC, Noel Sloley, and the Wyndham's G.M., Jimmy Wright, the silver screen made its appearance at the hotel at 11 p.m. It was a very close call.

Leaving the same meeting, Luther encountered computer problems. As in, Jamaican Customs tied up her silver screen and all the computers she rented out of Chicago. For three months. They were finally discovered in Miami. The computers were badly beaten up. Not a pretty picture.


Tax Issues/Caribbean Basin Initiative
A system of trade preferences and programs begun by the United States in 1984 to encourage trade with Caribbean and Central American countries can substantially impact on meeting planners. The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) makes meetings held in the 22 participating countries (see list) tax-deductible. Meetings held in non-CBI countries (such as Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Suriname and the Turks & Caicos Islands) are not tax-deductible.

Participating countries are those that allow U.S. inspection of banking records. As anyone who read John Grisham's novel, The Firm, knows, banks in the Cayman Islands do not communicate with the U.S. Government.

"The first thing you need to do is check with your tax accountant about which islands qualify as tax deductible under the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Some islands do not qualify," warns Art Nicley, president of Detroit-based American Photocopy and meeting planner for the American Co-op, an organization of office copier, facsimile and postage meter dealers. Nicley, who took his group to Jamaica in 1991 and St. Lucia in '92, says that the tax savings could be "significant" no matter what the size of your group, but the largest the group the larger the savings.

CBI gives hotels in participating countries equal footing with stateside meetings and a leg up on non-participating countries.
"The tax-deductibility makes it a better deal for meetings," says Jeff French, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Frenchman's Reef Beach Resort in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. "We have always had that benefit and we sell it. It provides a cost advantage to use us rather than another island. Why not avoid the hassle and take advantage of that deductibility?"

CARIBBEAN BASIN INITIATIVE PARTICIPANTS
Antigua & Barbuda
Aruba
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
British Virgin Islands
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Grenada
Guatemala
Guyana
Honduras
Jamaica
Montserrat
Netherlands Antilles
Nicaragua
Panama
St. Kitts-Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Trinidad & Tobago

Cruising
Meeting planners who want the daytime charms of the Caribbean and none of the nighttime headaches often opt for island-hopping cruises.

"Our way, they see the islands during the day, get back on the boat at night and float away," says Karin Holmes, meeting and travel coordinator for Central States of Omaha. "Our people get to see a lot of an island. Some of the islands are so small that to be in one place for five to seven days becomes a sleepy vacation. A cruise ship is high-energy all the time. There's a lot going on."

Holmes will embark on her second incentive meeting cruise next March, leaving out of San Juan and touching down with 200 agents in Martinique, Antigua, St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Barbados. In 1989, she led her group to Cozumel, Jamaica and Grand Cayman.

Attracting people to cruises is easy, she says.

"The thing the agents like best is there's very little out-of-pocket expense once they get on the cruise," Holmes says. "The only things they pay out of pocket for are alcohol and souvenirs. Meals and entertainment on-board are included, so it's perceived they're getting a lot for what they're winning. And it's a 7-day trip. It's very popular. I don't think a land program in the States would attract as many people."

Dear Bob,
 
I loved your article about "Meetings in the Caribbean"
 
It's true, the incentive traveling to the Caribbean is growing very fast!
 
I am from a beautiful island, Curaçao, the largest island of the Netherlands Antilles.

I was wondering if there was any way you could link our site mentioned below on yours.
 
I hope you would like to do that!
 
Thanking you in advance, I remain!
 
Best regards
 

Remco C. Ernandes
MCI Manager
Explore Curaçao (DMC)
Meeting, Convention and Incentive Traveling
Pietermaai # 135
Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles
Dutch Caribbean
Tel.: +(599 9) 517-7714
Fax: +(599 9) 461-7184
e-mail: info@explorecuracao.com
www.explorecuracao.com