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IS MEETING PLANNING A PROFESSION? (This article is
derived
from
reports submitted by members of the Education Committee
and presented
by
Chairperson
Andrea Sigler,PhD,
to the International Tourism Educators Conference,
Berlin, Germany, March, 1996. Complete references are available by request ) Is meeting planning a profession?
Are the people who plan meetings professionals? Will meeting planners be
downsized by computers? Professionalism is a direct result
of education. The first question to examine is whether the current educational
requirements qualify meeting management as a discipline or whether it is merely
a craft, an art, a science or area of study. There are certain characteristics
that distinguish a "professional discipline"
Law, Education and Medicine are
long-established disciplines. Those who practice them are without doubt,
considered professionals. A "subject area", on the
other hand, does not possess the status and credibility of a discipline. It is,
nonetheless, a topic of serious academic consideration. Some topics are
considered subject areas for a period of time before becoming full -fledged
disciplines. Business Administration is an example of a field currently
undergoing this evolution. There are a number of
characteristics that separate a subject area from a discipline:
Where does meeting management fit
in? To better answer that question, it
is useful to take a look at the current state of tourism and hospitality education.
The field itself is no more than 50 years old. It is not well-established as an
area of academic study. It lacks the theoretical underpinnings of more mature
fields of study, such as education, medicine or law. All this has resulted in a fragmented
approach to tourism education, leading to the following:
The Council for Hotel Restaurant
and Institutional Education (CHRIE) based in Washington DC has estimated that
there are approximately 168 institutions in the USA that offer hospitality
management degrees at the bachelor level (Many more offer associate degrees).
This matches figures from the American Hotel and Motel Association (AHMA) which
reports that there are nearly 500 schools offering hospitality management, about
one third at the bachelor level. The School of Hotel Administration
in Cornell University, one of the oldest and most prestigious in the country,
claims to have "the most comprehensive curriculum" to be found in any
hospitality school. But there was no mention of any course in "Meetings
Management" in a brochure distributed at a recent meeting of tourism
educators. In Germany, vocational education
for hospitality is well-established. Most fachhochschulen which offer
degree level qualifications, offer specializations in hospitality management.
But a review of curricula at six schools that offer degree level programs did
not turn up a single course on meetings management. In Great Britain, which traces the origins
of hospitality training as far back as the early 1900s, the theorist D. Airey
argues that educational offerings in the UK is more fully developed and more
diverse than in other countries. That may, indeed be true. But again,
examination of the offerings of five major universities did not reveal a single
course in meeting management. The conclusion is clear: While
tourism and hospitality programs around the globe expanded rapidly in the
1980s, meeting management remained a "niche" pursuit. Expressed another
way, if tourism and hospitality can be characterized as an "evolving"
subject area, meeting management is still in its infancy. Some "baby steps" have
been taken. Thanks in part to the efforts of the Professional Convention
Management Association (PCMA), meetings management has become more integrated
into tourism and hospitality curricula. In the USA, hospitality, hotel,
tourism and meetings management are integrated into higher and continuing
education in a way which makes it hard to identify all the relevant courses.
This situation is complicated further by the diversity of approaches which
educational institutions take in the delivery of these courses. Most degree
structures are modular in the USA and students majoring in another subject may
study meetings management as an option. A rough estimate suggests that more
than 50 colleges, universities and business schools in the US offer meeting
management courses in one form or another. Still, meeting management degree
courses on the Master's level are rare, PhD programs are unheard of Educational programs in meetings
management have developed in a seemingly "ad hoc" and unplanned way
in the USA. They are., like the industry, extremely fragmented. Most meeting
management development offerings are provided by associations; credentials are
offered as professional certifications rather than academic degrees. Analysis
of seminars and workshops presented at various association conferences during
the past five years reveals that most fall under the category of
"training" (not education) courses. "Education" should
provide meeting planners with a new set of tools for interpretation, evaluation
and analysis of new knowledge by developing critical and analytical abilities.
Education offers a general, rather than a sector-specific perspective. The key
is provision of "transferable" skills such as analytical ability,
verbal and written communication skills, problem-solving and management skills,
to name a few. "Training", on the other
hand, concentrates on the detailed application of practical but often
lower-level skills. Much of the training in meeting management is
sector-specific and non-transferable, for example, site selection, room lay-out
design, food and beverage management and meeting logistics, among others. and
others. That said, we come back to the
original question: Is meeting planning a profession and can people who plan
them be called "professionals"? Certainly not in its present form. The industry has to undergo a
maturation process. The recognition of its substantial contribution to the
economy (documented by CLC's Economic Impact Study) and the growth of
associations has accelerated the study of the field, albeit in ad hoc and
unplanned manner. But the area is bedeviled by conceptual weakness and fuzziness;
even within the certification area, there remains differences of opinion as to
just what constitutes the subject area of meeting management. The industry is extremely
fragmented. Larger, more established organizations are protective of their respective
turfs. Newcomers who might contribute to the body of knowledge so necessary for
maturation are often viewed with suspicion. A new paradigm will be created as
many of the tasks, traditionally the province of the meeting planner, will be
taken over by computers. Computers can already research sites, prepare
specifications, match up meeting requirements, conduct "virtual"
negotiations, register participants, design and print badges, prepare reports,
select menus and correctly calculate not only costs but calories as well.. They can assure meetings begin and
end on time, program departures and arrivals of buses,(and trace their routes
to avoid bottlenecks). Computers can program meeting room temperature,
predicting with uncanny accuracy what the temperature should be if 10, 100 or
1000 people are in the room And, with the click of a mouse, the computer can
design a room lay-out…and assign seating! In short, much of what the
traditional meeting planner does, a computer can do better. Why, then, are many
of these tasks still being handled as they've always been? I believe it is because human
choice governs the adoption of technology and humans, as a general rule are
slow to accept change. But there is no doubt that this transition will occur in
the next few years (if not the next few months). How, after all, can employers
and association executives responsible for the bottom line ignore the savings
in time and money that a greater degree of "virtual planning" can
deliver?. Some scientists believe that all human
thought is completely algorithmic, that is, it can be broken down into a series
of mathematical operations. While that may be so, there are certain elements of
human interaction that are illogical and cannot be quantified. (Nineteenth
century mathematician Ada Byron suggested that the essential difference between
mind and machine is creativity). Even Selmer Bringsjord in his recent article
"Can Computers Create Literature?" admits that while his machine can
think mechanically, it could never think experientially in the sense of having
subjective awareness. While I believe that the
traditional meeting planner who specializes in logistics management will become
extinct as they are replaced by computers, I am convinced there is a place for
the human planner who specializes in the management of the educational
experience of association members. It is in the area of education that
a human meeting manager will best the superior logistical calculations and
communication possibilities of a virtual meeting planner. While computers can
create programs based on expressed participant needs, education can most
effectively be delivered by sensitive, feeling humans who can "read
between the lines", probe for the unexpressed and provide warmth and
camaraderie in a meeting environment What does all this have to do with
meeting management? The "traditional" meeting planner who specializes
in logistics (i.e. scheduling buses and rooms, designing room lay-outs) will be
downsized by computers. The new paradigm will model an "emergent"
association meeting manager whose creativity, experiential knowledge, and
technological savvy will facilitate communication, interaction and education. To grow within the profession, Bill
Draves noted in the October 1997 issue of Convene (4), "meeting managers
will have to become adult educators". Those who do not, will either be
replaced by computers or serve as logistical aides to meeting professionals. So, what does a traditional meeting
professional need to do to prepare for the future?
References: Airey D,
Cross-Cultural Approaches to Teaching Tourism, International Conference for
Tourism Educators, University of Surrey, 1988. Bratton, R et al.
New Horizons n Hospitality Education, Calgary, 1991 Bringsjold, Selmer,
Can Computers Create Literature?, Technology Review, 1998 Cooper et al,
Educating the Educators, World Tourism Organization, 1996. Draves, William,
Why Meeting managers Must Become Adult Educators, Convene, 1997 |
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