Golf Outing a Hit

Thank you again to all of our folks who came out and supported the AENC Golf Outing. It was a beautiful day!!

We had a over 90 players and all of our sponsorships sold-out and our host at Prestonwood was amazing. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the photos from the event, please click here.

Congrats to all of our winners of our proximity prizes.
Bob Shaefer with the NC Forestry Association won the Closest to the Pin for Men prize from Kiawah. Jan Kelly with the NC Egg Association won the Longest  Drive for Women prize from the Greenville CVB. Susan Eaton from the Wilmington Convention Center won the Closest to the Pin for Women prize from Helms Briscoe. Frank Gray with Jordan Price won the Straightest Drive contest prize from Grandover & The Sheraton Greensboro. And Tracy Aldridge won the Longest Drive for Men prize from Harrahs Cherokee and Sequoyah National.

Thank you to everyone who donated prizes and congrats to all the winners. Special thanks to Prestonwood Country Club, the Greater Raleigh CVB, John Q. Hammons Hotels of NC, Brier Creek Country Club and Ruth’s Chris for providing our Grand Prizes.

And now, for the winners of the AENC Golf Outing.

Coming in at Third Place with a score of 59, was the team Todd Phillips and Lee McInnis from 5/3 Bank and Mike Schreier and Ron Ruffner from Rx Solutions.

In Second Place with a 58, was Doug Carlson, ABC of the Carolinas, Dixon Putnam, Hilton Wilmington and Kevin Johnson and Catrina Vienrich from the Sheraton Raleigh.

Our First Place team, with a score of 57, was Tracy Aldridge and Gayle Love from the Cabarrus CVB, John Cruz from Helms Briscoe and Lynette Armstrong from John Deere.

Great addition to this year’s Golf Outing was the ability for any association staff person to attend the reception, for free, even if you didn’t play golf. And the reception and the facility at Prestonwood was amazing. Check out all the photos online, but there are few that are worth sharing.

Thank you again and look forward to seeing you on June 12-13 at the Hilton Wilmington for the AENC Annual Meeting.

The Power of A

Each year as the executive director of AENC I get to participate in the annual ASAE Fly-In. This is an opportunity for association executives from all across the country to come to Washington, DC and meet with our members of Congress and talk about issues that are of importance to the profession.
This year was no different as we are trying to encourage both the Senate and House to come to agreement on the repeal of the new 1099 requirements that were included and passed in the new Health Care Reform legislation.
This year ASAE provided attendees with some very interesting information on the Power of A, ASAE’s public policy campaign that is meant to demonstrate the power of associations in the US.
Statistics that were provided by ASAE demonstrate that the association community is leading the nation in social progress and economic recovery.
So, how are associations help keep America competitive?
Associations employ over 1.6 million people in all 50 states and the combined payroll for associations in 2008 was $47 billion. And, according to survey data from ASAE, nearly 94% of association members said their employment situation will remain the same (70%) or be better (23%).
What about the impact of associations on the economy?
Associations are a major contributor to the meetings industry, holding meetings and seminars across the country. And according to ASAE, the meetings industry accounts for 1.7 million jobs nationwide and generates $263 billion in spending, money that funds local and national economies.
Lastly, associations in the US enrich lives. They make a difference. According to ASAE, 30% of people who volunteer their time do so though an association and that accounts for about $50 billion worth of volunteer time. The great thing about this number is that its going up! Recent information from ASAE says that associations are seeing an increase in the number of members volunteering going from 31.9% to 44.8%. A very exciting trend!!
Thank you so much for the team from ASAE for organizing the recent Fly-In and for providing information that goes to show the power of associations in the US. I for one am glad to be a part of The Power of A.

Tourism is Up in NC

This past weekend I had a chance to attend the NC Governor’s Conference on Travel and Tourism, hosted by the Asheville CVB and what a relief to see that Travel and Tourism in NC was much better in 2010 and 2011 looks good so far.

Before I go into details about that, I did want to share with you some interesting statistics about the impact of Travel and Tourism in NC that was shared at the conference from the NC Department of Commerce‘s  Division of Travel and Tourism.

For every $1 NC spends to advertise, we get $17 back – $10.30 in new state tax revenue and $6.25 in local tax revenue. That’s great ROI, huh?
And speaking of spending, domestic travelers in NC spent $17B in 2010. That means that visitors in NC spend over $46 million a day and contribute $4.1 million per day in state and local tax revenue.

What about jobs? More than 40,000 businesses in NC directly provide products and services to travelers, which goes to support 185,000 jobs in NC. We now rank third in the nation for leisure and hospitality job growth. The sector added 26,600 jobs in the last 5 years.

North Carolina is now the sixth most visited state, behind California, Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania.

And finally, visitor spending generated $947 million in state tax revenue in 2010. In fact, state tax revenue generated by tourism has grown by over 35% since 2000 and each NC household saves $390 annually in state and local taxes generated by visitor spending.

In addition to that wealth of information, it was interesting to hear research about where the hotel industry is in NC. Chad Church from STR Global did a great presentation on how the US and, more importantly, the NC hotel marketing is fairing.

In the US last year, demand was almost equal to what it was at its peak in November 2007. So, compared to 2009, demand is up 7% and occupancy is up 5.8%. However, there hasn’t been a real increase in ADR (average daily rate). That was only up 2.8%.

On a state level the trends are similar – occupancy is up, however, ADR isn’t.

At its peak, ADR was $107. It’s about $96 now. And although group demand has been lagging, there appears to be an upside for late 2011.

In NC, occupancy is up about 7.3%, supply is up 2%, demand is up 9.6% and RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room) is up 7%. The big impact has been on the ADR. It is currently down 2%.

As it relates to demand, it is almost at its prior peak from Oct 2007 and groups accounted for 38% of that demand.

As it relates to ADR, there is a sense that it should turn positive growth this year and hopefully begin realizing a growth of 6% annually in the coming years. The question for hoteliers is whether they want to grow demand or grow ADR.

So, in NC where is growth ideal – demand is up in urban centers 12%, 8% suburban, and 9% in airport.

ADR is up 2.9% in urban, suburban and airport areas are still trailing.

ADR is starting to climb, but slow. Most are about 5% below peak levels. A good 2011 and solid 2012 and we are back to “normal”. And think about this in 2010 we saw $2.2B in room revenue, if ADR were to increase just 1%, it would generate $2.3B. So, be looking for room rates to start climbing again, even if its just by a few dollars.

The one great takeaway from this conference – things are looking up and up in NC’s Travel and Tourism. And that is something of which we can all be thankful!

Membership Growth in a Flat Economy

Very excited to have over 20 people at today’s Idea Swap on Membership Growth in a Flat Economy.  We explored many factors that challenged us as association professionals when it comes to growing our membership base.

One great issue was trying to have different value propositions for different groups of members – particularly generational differences. Not only do the generations require a different value proposition, but they also desire to be communicated to differently. T he days of the one-size fits all message to your members is gone.

One method of communication that has stood the test of time is the good old phone. Using the phone to communicate with current or potential members is a great way to check with them and create that dialog. Although, make sure you are talking to them on their time when you know they are likely able to pay attention. The great thing about these calls, and they should be looked at as “sales” calls, you can use this as a time also to figure out what their needs are and then “Feed the Need”.

Although, the group did agree that social media isn’t going anywhere and that associations better begin using it or they will be missing out. Facebook isn’t the only way to accomplish developing a virtual community, some organizations are turning to places like Higher Logic and MemberFuse to create so-called private social networks. This systems connect with you AMS system.

Communicating to members is always a challenge. There are so many tools out there to help organizations communicate in a more savvy way. These tools, such as MagnetMail, ConstantContact, iContact, are great ways to communicate to members in a variety of ways – text, email, mobile, etc. In addition, many of these services also include some survey capabailities and some might even tie into your AMS (member database).

Many organizations, AENC included, mix the concepts of membership benefits vs. member features. They are not interchangeable. Check out this article in Entrepreneur Magazine that describes the difference.

One issue that often impacts member retention is getting members involved in the organization. You must figure out how you can get members involved. Not everyone wants to be on the board and that’s ok. You need people to help collate, too.

How do you make your members need you. One way is to create a need. In other words create a “crisis” situation that brings to the front and center how the associations is making a difference to the profession and without the association, your profession could be in jeopardy. However you want to look at – both fear and guilt can often be a reason for people to belong to the association. Now, that won’t keep a member for long nor is this a good method for recruiting leaders in the organization. You must be able to answer this question for your members – What would happen if were not here?

Gathering data about your members is extremely important, but what are you doing to collect information. Are you tracking the page views on your website, looking at what links they click on in your e-News. Are you interviewing new members and asking them why they joined the association. And on the flip side, are you asking members why they are not renewing. You must know this information.

Another idea for membership growth is through student memberships. They are usually much less expensive than regular memberships and according to one association, 92% of their student members go on to become regular members. Some groups offer conference discounts, too.

Speaking of discounts, our facilitator challenged the notion in her association by eliminating the member/non-member rates at conference. The association considers it advancing the association by doing this, plus the association get’s access to the names to market to later on.

To share your burning issues for our next Idea Swap, please click here.