Credit A COASTAL COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION PUBLICATION OCTOBER 2021 VOL. 28 NO. 4 $15.00 AIR RARE Mountain Venues Offer Sky-High Meeting Amenities ALSO IN THIS ISSUE FOOD THAT ATTRACTS STRESS- MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES ARIZONA THE FUTURE OF TEAM BUILDING Attendees in Colorado Springs can enjoy many experiences, including a hot-air balloon ride.LEARN MORE AT MGMRESORTS.COM CYPRESS EXECUTIVE LOUNGE AT ARIAINSURANCE & FINANCIAL MEETINGS MANAGEMENT | OCTOBER 2021 themeetingmagazines.com 3 OCTOBER 2021 Vol. 28 No. 4 14 24 28 departments features 14 28 4 18 24 Food That Attracts Enticing Food & Beverage Options Remain One of the Most Important Elements of Any Meeting Or Event By Sophia Bennett Rare Air Mountain Venues Offer Sky-High Meeting Amenities By Nancy Mueller Pressure Points Fallout From the COVID-19 Pandemic Added to an Already-Stressful Career By Maura Keller Arizona Scenic Beauty and a Multitude of Outdoor Activities By David Swanson destinations 6 8 10 12 34 Publisher’s Message News & Notes The Future of Team Building Meeting the Challenge of a Hybrid Workforce and Workplace By Nate Martin Your Secret Weapon Why Inner Peace is the Workplace Skill You Didn’t Know You Needed By Ed Hess Hybrid Habits 9 Strategies to Elevate Hybrid Experiences By Devin Cleary Corporate Ladder 18 ISSN 1095-9726USPS 012-991Harvey Grotsky A COASTAL COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION PUBLICATION PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Harvey Grotsky harvey.grotsky @ themeetingmagazines.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Kristin Bjornsen kristin.bjornsen @ themeetingmagazines.com MANAGING EDITOR Henry Fitzgerald henry.fitzgerald @ themeetingmagazines.com EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Rachel Galvin rachel.galvin @ themeetingmagazines.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sophia Bennett Sara Churchville Cynthia Dial Maura Keller Christine Loomis Nancy Mueller Patrick Simms David Swanson PRESIDENT & CEO Harvey Grotsky VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS David Middlebrook david.middlebrook @ themeetingmagazines.com ADVERTISING SALES OFFICES 2700 N. Military Trail, Suite 120 Boca Raton, FL 33431-6394 561-989-0600 Fax: 561-989-9509 advertising@themeetingmagazines.com IL | IN | WI REGIONAL MANAGER Bob Mitchell 630-541-3388 • Mobile: 630-235-0126 bob.mitchell@themeetingmagazines.com DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROJECTS Michael Caffin 914-629-5860 michael.caffin@themeetingmagazines.com Time to Connect Face-to-Face Again At last, in-person events and trade shows are back after almost two years of postponements and cancellations. From exhibitor booth visits to event programming, there is always something to see and learn — whether you are a novice meeting planner or seasoned professional. We only have been in contact with each other by phone or email since the pandemic began, so it will be nice to be able to reconnect with attendees and suppliers after all this time. It also will be nice to finally have face-to-face conversations again. This year’s hotel negotiations differ from pre-pandemic negotiations, as many hotels and resorts have offered to roll over 2020 rates, as this year’s booking activity is higher than last year, and as the recovery is still happening. However, some industry experts predict the 2022 hotel and resort negotiated rates could increase up to 15% year over year. The projected increases can be attributed to increased costs for hotel services, meeting group demand recovery and other financial challenges. Despite the reduced number of RFPs over the past year, many hotel and resort operators think there is value in hav- ing a negotiated program, as most planners and suppliers see great value in negotiated rate agreements. Ours is a divided country, and those of us in the meeting planner and hospitality business will need pandemic strategies. It is expected that we will be living with this for some time, so we had better get used to it. Some say it is easy to buy into our divisions, but it’s time to stop. We may be di- vided, but remember that we always have been. We can work together and have a brighter 2022. If you haven’t made plans yet to attend IMEX America in Las Vegas next month, now is the time to do so. IMEX America is back, and in its new home at Mandalay Bay Resort Casino. I hope to see you there! Insurance & Financial Meetings Management is published bi-monthly by Coastal Communications Corporation, 2700 N. Military Trail, Ste. 120, Boca Raton, FL 33431-6394; 561-989-0600. Single copies $15.00 U.S.A.; back cop- ies $17. Yearly subscription price is $70.00 in the U.S.A.; $135.00 in Canada. Distributed without charge to qualified personnel. Periodicals Postage Paid at Boca Raton, FL, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Insurance & Financial Meetings Management, 2700 N. Military Trail, Ste. 120, Boca Raton, FL 33431-6394. Nothing contained in this publication shall constitute an endorsement by Coastal Communications Cor- poration (Insurance & Financial Meetings Management), and the publication disclaims any liability with respect to the use of reliance on any such informa- tion. The information contained in this publication is no way to be construed as a recommendation by I&FMM of any industry standard, or as a recommenda- tion of any kind to be adopted by or binding upon any corporate/incentive travel planner or agent. Reproduction of any portion of this publication by any means is strictly forbidden. Editorial contributions must be accompanied by return postage and will be handled with reasonable care. However, the publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited photographs or manuscripts. Subscriber: Send subscription inquiries and address changes to: Circulation Dept., Insurance & Financial Meetings Management, 2700 N. Mili- tary Trail, Ste. 120, Boca Raton, FL 33431-6394. Give old and new addresses including zip codes. Enclose address label from most recent issue and allow five weeks for change to become effective. Printed in U.S.A. © 2021 www.themeetingmagazines.com FOR SAFETY INFORMATION VISIT UOMEETINGSANDEVENTS . COM Meetings & Events Universal elements and all related indicia TM & © 2021 Universal Studios. All rights reserved. PUBLISHER’SMESSAGE 4 OCTOBER 2021 | INSURANCE & FINANCIAL MEETINGS MANAGEMENTthemeetingmagazines.comFOR SAFETY INFORMATION VISIT UOMEETINGSANDEVENTS . COM Meetings & Events Universal elements and all related indicia TM & © 2021 Universal Studios. All rights reserved. INDUSTRYNEWS themeetingmagazines.com 6 LAS VEGAS, NV — As the world’s first Nobu Hotel Caesars Palace commemorates its eighth anniversary, the luxury boutique hotel within the iconic Las Vegas resort embarks on a mul- timillion-dollar refresh of all 182 guest rooms and public areas. This is one of several proj- ects in development as Caesars Entertainment Inc. expands its long-standing partnership with Nobu Hospitality — the global lifestyle brand founded by Nobu Matsuhisa, Robert De Niro and Meir Teper. To create a more modern, residential feel at Nobu Hotel Caesars Palace, the award-winning global architecture and design firm Rockwell Group has re-envisioned the guest rooms and common areas it first designed in 2013. Rockwell Group has drawn inspiration from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold epoxy — creating cohesion from collage. This element will create a streamlined, lighter and more luxe take on the original design concept. The focal piece of the new guest rooms will be a custom sofa in a dozen different patch-worked uphol- steries, from painterly-style prints to muted textured graphics. OCTOBER 2021 | INSURANCE & FINANCIAL MEETINGS MANAGEMENT WASHINGTON, D.C. — Business travel- ers are generally optimistic about the long-term recovery and future for busi- ness travel prospects, as less than 1 in 10 (8.8%) think they will never travel for business as much as they did before the pandemic, according to the lat- est monthly Traveler Confidence Index developed by Travel Again. Two-thirds (67.2%) think they either already are or will be traveling as frequently for business as they did pre-pandemic by the end of 2022. Another 22.4% and 4.0% think they’ll hit the same level of pre-pandemic busi- ness travel some time in 2023 or in 2024, respectively. The number of business travelers reporting that they feel fully ready to travel jumped by 10 percentage points in October to 33.6%. At the same time, those reporting they have no confidence in travel fell to its lowest level in the year Travel Again has been tracking confidence, falling below 1% (0.8%). The most important confidence-building elements for busi- ness travelers include vaccinations and empty middle seats. On the leisure side, there were mandatory masks, limited crowd sizes and frequent cleaning. In fact, the popularity of mask wearing as a way to make leisure travelers feel more confident increased to its highest level since March. BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — As Carib- bean tourism destinations continue their journey toward normality, pre- liminary data from member countries of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) reveal that the region outper- formed the rest of the world in the first half of 2021. During this period, inter- national tourist arrivals to the Carib- bean reached 6.6 million, representing a 12% decline when compared to the same period last year. By the end of May, arrivals were at 5.2 million, down 30.8% for the corresponding period in 2020, considerably better than the global average of a 65.1% decline. Of the main regions analyzed, The Americas, which included the Carib- bean, registered a 46.9% drop. “These are encouraging signs that the hard work our member countries have put into adapting to the changing environ- ment of the pandemic is beginning to pay dividends,” says Neil Walters, the CTO’s acting secretary general. The Caribbean has seen a less- precipitous drop in visitors compared to other regions. PLAYA HOTELS & RESORTS AND WYNDHAM TO LAUNCH NEW ALL-INCLUSIVE RESORT BRAND PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Playa Hotels & Resorts recently announced the launch of a new all-inclusive resort brand, Wynd- ham Alltra. The announcement marks Wyndham’s 22nd brand and its first dedicated entirely to the fast-growing, all-inclusive segment. In conjunction with the brand launch, Wyndham begins a strategic alliance with Playa Hotels & Resorts, leveraging Wyn- dham’s unparalleled ability to drive sales, marketing and distribution in the economy, mid-scale and upscale segments via its 89 million enrolled Wyndham Rewards Members and distinct Everyday Travelers, combined with Playa’s ability to provide a best- in-class hospitality experience and exceptional value to guests. The new brand’s name, “Alltra,” is born from the promise of “All-Inclusive Travel for All,” keeping with Wyndham’s mission of delivering exceptional experiences. NOBU HOTEL CAESARS PALACE BEGINS MULTIMILLION- DOLLAR REFRESH PROJECT BUSINESS TRAVELERS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT LONG-TERM FUTURE FOR RECOVERY CARIBBEAN TOURISM OUTPERFORMS THE REST OF THE WORLD The number of business travelers reporting that they feel fully ready to travel jumped by 10 percentage points. COURTESY OF ISLAND VENTURE Nobu Hotel Caesars Palace is located within the iconic Caesars Palace.INSURANCE & FINANCIAL MEETINGS MANAGEMENT | OCTOBER 2021themeetingmagazines.com 7 ARLINGTON, TX — Loews Hotel & Co. recently celebrated the groundbreak- ing of the new Loews Arlington Hotel. The $550 million, 888-room hotel is part of an $810 million expansion of Arlington’s Convention Campus, which, in addition to the hotel, will include: • A new Arlington Convention Center, which will offer 216,000 sf of meeting and outdoor space • A mixed-use residential building with 280 units and 100,000 sf of retail, entertainment and co-working space, to help grow and support small businesses • A planned 200,000-sf corporate office headquarters in the Arlington Entertainment District • An additional public garage with 1,900 parking spaces “We are thrilled to welcome this new hotel as we continue to build on the economic momentum in our great Entertainment District,” says Decima Mullen, vice president of marketing & PR. “Arlington is truly a world-class destination, and we look forward to 2024, when we will see a new convention center and Arlington Loews hotel completed in The District.” The expansion is the next phase of a $4 billion vision by the City of Arling- ton, Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers, The Cordish Companies and Loews Hotels & Co. that began with the $250 million Texas Live! entertainment complex, which opened late summer 2018, and Live! by Loews Hotel, which opened late summer 2019. A rendering of Loews Arlington Hotel. SIR RICHARD BRANSON CELEBRATES OPENING OF VIRGIN HOTELS NEW ORLEANS NEW ORLEANS, LA — New Orleans residents came together recently to celebrate the city’s resilience and con- tinued growth as an international desti- nation with the opening of Virgin Hotels New Orleans, the most recent hotel from Sir Richard Branson’s expanding brand of lifestyle hotels. Branson arrived on property, baton in hand, accompanied by the Marching 100, St. Augustine High School’s internationally acclaimed band from nearby Lafayette Square. Hotel owners Buccini/Pollin Group and Virgin Hotels New Orleans presented the school with a donation to help and support repairing damages to the build- ing sustained from Hurricane Ida, while James Bermingham, Virgin Hotels chief executive officer and Branson addressed the students. Students and attendees received a native magnolia tree to plant from Common Ground Relief, whose Plant a Million Trees campaign aims to help the city and Gulf Coast com- munities build healthy, robust coastal wetlands. Virgin Hotels New Orleans is the latest property from the lifestyle hospitality brand that combines heart- felt service, straightforward value, and a seamless, personalized hotel experience with the track record of innovation and smart disruption that Branson’s global Virgin Group has pioneered for 50 years. Located in New Orleans’ lively Ware- house District, the property mixes a pas- sion for food and beverage with music and culture that fuses with the Crescent City’s unique personality. VINOY RENAISSANCE ST. PETERSBURG RESORT & GOLF CLUB ANNOUNCES RENOVATION LOEWS ARLINGTON HOTEL CELEBRATES GROUNDBREAKING ST. PETERSBURG, FL — The Vinoy St. Petersburg Resort & Golf Club announces the launch of the initial phase of a comprehensive transformation that will reflect the resort’s rich history through a refined, yet sophisticated lens. The elegant redesign will include the resort’s legendary veranda, porte cochère, main lobby, guest rooms, spa, ballrooms, restaurants and more, with an anticipated completion in 2022. With nods to the urban resort’s glamorous past, the revamp incorporates elegant design elements while celebrating The Vinoy’s traditional Mediterranean Revival design and old- Florida grandeur. The re-imagined arrival court, veranda and lobby, which will feature a patisserie, will showcase beautiful design highlights and custom, lantern-like chandeliers, introducing visitors to the resort’s renewed image. Timeless architectural details such as the lobby’s original cypress wood beams and ceramic flooring will be honored, and restored, within the new interiors. The iconic pink hotel blends modern elegance with Mediterranean Revival architecture in the heart of downtown St. Petersburg, with more than 40,000 sf of spectacular indoor/ outdoor event space, innovative restaurants and a day spa. PHOTO BY LINKA ODOM Branson (left) at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Virgin Hotels New Orleans.The Future of Team Building Meeting the Challenge of a Hybrid Workforce and Workplace BY NATE MARTIN T he workplace has experimented with remote work for decades before anyone ever heard of COVID-19. The advent of per- sonal computers and the internet opened us to using technology to make our workplace more flexible way before the pres- ent scenario unfolded. The pandemic put the process on steroids, of course, forcing enterprises in nearly every industry to adapt almost overnight or risk closing shop. But the changes this process wrought went beyond a sudden deployment of criti- cal infrastructure to support remote workers en masse. Per- haps, the most significant para- digm shift was in the way we interact and bond with each other as co-workers. Above all, it was about how we build and maintain strong teams in the altered reality where most — if not all — of us aren’t physically in the same space. Gone are the “water-cooler moments” and other seemingly incremental activities and touch- points that contribute to productivity. Those experi- ences cannot be readily addressed or duplicated by a quick video chat, and the cascading implications of this will require significant additional adapta- tions in the days ahead. Team building is a critical area in which the enterprise must adapt to survive and thrive. TEAM CHALLENGES THAT DON’T DIRECTLY TRANSLATE The impact of the pan- demic was like a meteor strike with so much social connectivity tissue evaporat- ing overnight. Unsurprisingly, that seriously affects team building and bonding with a detrimental effect on pro- ductivity. There’s more to team bonding than chats in the break room or hallway, of course. Grabbing a bite or drink with co-workers has been part of workplace bonding for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, these team-building activities don’t translate well to video conferencing, so we must address more deliberate methods. INDUSTRYINSIDER themeetingmagazines.com 8 OCTOBER 2021 | INSURANCE & FINANCIAL MEETINGS MANAGEMENTTeam building has always been about both improving one’s skills as a person and of the whole team as a unit. However, many traditional in-person team-building events were already admittedly out-of-date and stagnant. Personality tests, lectures, off-campus retreats, and trust falls are all activities that have gone well past their sell-by date. Not only aren’t these rooted in meaningful data or science, but they are also quite painful and often disliked by the participants. Without partici- pant buy-in, any team-building activity is dead on arrival. WHY VIRTUALLY RE-CREATE SOMETHING THAT WASN’T WORKING WELL? We may have lost the ability to do in-person team building for now, but so much of the content was “old and moldy” to begin with. However, most organizations — not to mention compa- nies that conduct team-building events — had to do something, so they retrofit- ted these activities into a form factor that makes no sense. But the question is more than one of logistics; more importantly, why keep doing stuff that wasn’t working well even in person? Instead, companies and vendors first need to determine what works well empirically and what does not. That means closely observing how people work and interact to solve a problem, then turning that knowledge into actionable data. Only then can we focus on the types of activities — not the activities themselves — that we can adapt or reinvent to suit a post-pandemic world. CREATING EVIDENCE- BASED TEAM BUILDING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS The post-pandemic scenario neces- sitates an evidence-based approach to team building that is informed by observation. First, we must observe and record. As a team-building company, for exam- ple, Puzzle Break has observed thou- sands of teams undergoing traditional team-building exercises over the last decade, repeating the same techniques time after time. We’ve also observed non-traditional methods — escape rooms or solving a mystery, for exam- ple — trying to determine what works and what does not. The act of observ- ing and recording provides companies and vendors with a veritable gold mine of data, allowing us to detect statisti- cally significant trends about how teams work together optimally. Second, we have to ensure the actual activity empowers the par- ticipants to leverage their diverse, and disparate, skills and insights to achieve a common objective. This is conspicuously missing from a lot of the team-building activities, such as a personality test or trust fall. Finally, we have to repeat and refine. We must continue collecting and using the data to make activities we’ve created ever more effective in their impact on the participants. THE FUTURE OF TEAM BUILDING MUST BE FUN AND ENGAGING Some changes can be permanent; personal interaction at the workplace may never entirely return to what it was only a handful of years ago. The most likely future scenario, though, is that we’ll reach a steady state of a hybrid workplace in which people come and go in an orderly, if unpredictable, manner. Logistical challenges aside, the worst team building you can do is nothing — you have to invest in your employees and your teams if you’re to survive and thrive. At the same time, you can do a lot better than blindly retrofitting an existing team-building experience for online and video. If it didn’t work well before, it won’t work for the new workplace. We must adopt a whole new model for team-building activities, one that works equally well across the in-person, work-from-home, and hybrid environ- ments. And, it has to be fun and engag- ing — not the personality test and lec- ture bit — if we want people to want to participate in a meaningful manner. To create a truly magical experience, we have to observe and record to learn what works in the new hybrid work- place and reject what does not. And we must never forget that while physical- ity may be a thing of the past, virtuality presents opportunities and avenues for exploration that in-person cannot. Team building is not about trust falls or a rope tug-of-war; it never really was, even in the pre-pandemic era — and it is not the case in the hybrid workplace of today and tomorrow. The bottom line is to effectively provide experiences that encourage every- one to work together and use their brains to achieve a common objective, regardless of where they may physi- cally be. The way forward is to study the evidence, behavior, and data and use it to create a team-building strat- egy in step with the times. I & FMM INSURANCE & FINANCIAL MEETINGS MANAGEMENT | OCTOBER 2021themeetingmagazines.com 9 Nate Martin is CEO and co-founder of Puzzle Break — America’s first escape-room company. A graduate of the DigiPen Institute of Technology, he was a senior executive at Microsoft and Electronic Arts prior to Puzzle Break. Martin is a frequent lecturer and blogger, a Business Journal 40-Under-40 honoree, and was also profiled by MSNBC’s “Your Business,” where he was dubbed the “Founding Father of Escape Rooms.” THE AUTHOR Personality tests, lectures, off-campus retreats, and trust falls are all activities that have gone well past their sell-by date.Next >