Have Fonference, Will Travel

On June 10, the Lal Darbar convention centre opens at Kathmandu's plushet hotel, the Yak and Yeti. With littel or no industry worth its name in Nepal to deamnd the extravagance of a 1,000-seat centre, it's cler that the facility is being trageted for the international market that includes Europe and South-east Asia as prime targets. And India? According to Vishal the hotel, "We expect 30-35 per cent for our business to come from India." For many Indians, its easy accessibility and cheap airfares have led to Kathmandu being treated much like any other Indian destination. And like them, Kathmandu too is in the business of filling up rooms round the year with special opportunitis created around business.

 

With hotels offering up to 40 per cent some say much more discounts, and even travel agents offering incentives of five-15 per cent on their services and ticketing, summer's are made bearable for the hotel (and convention) inconventions still happen in season, the summer is the point when domestic seminars, tradermeets and onferences take the heat off occupancies.

The trend among most corporates is to take employees out on business-cum pleasure trips once, twice or three-times a year to Goa, Mussoories, Corbett or Kathmandu. Listed as seminars, most are acutally incentives to pat the deserving the back with a semi-official holidaly. Employees are despatched to offbeat, off-season locations primarily to get some rest and telaxtion, with a little bit of work thrown in. The tab, of course, is picked up by the organisation they work for.

As Daljeet Singh, executive director, ICI India Ltd puts it: "In today's corporate scenario, people change jobs every two three years. most of uor employees are highly internally foacused. They are goal oriented and for them, their career is paramount. As a rsult, they have every little social interaction with each other. Conferences/seminars help us build team spiritn among them. This is also the time when they get to catch up on each other's lives and forge a fundamental understanding.

But even conferences and room discount are insufficient when it comes to filling the large busines and resort hotel rooms in the summer months. No wonder, The Taj Group is forarying into the Asia-Pacific region as potential business generating centres for its 56 hotel locations in India. Constant marketing effort hve also included working in tandem with airliens to form a package deal.

There are, now, also outdoor and off-beat seminars linked with whitewater rafting, rock climbing, and trekking. Ajit Bajaj of Snow Leoparads, who has been in the business of arranging "adventure conferences" says he has taken 125 coorporates in souch outdoor managment development programmes. Most of these are essentially team building exercises where groups of 10-15 are formed and made to compete against each other - whetehr in somethign as strenous as river rafting or innocuous as musical charis.

Corporates organise dealer meets and `booker' (persons who have a long-standing business interest in the organisation - they could be CEOs of other concerns or senior government officisl) meets. The trip is planned accordingly - more work, less funfor just the employees; less work, more fun for the atrons' and no hard sells permitted.

For short trips of two days, most organisation prefer a destination that is reasonably close ot the city they work in. Rakesh Lamba of Prakriti Tours and Travels, another agency in the business of arrangin saminars, says: "We have handled groups of 20-200 and the destination often depends on the number of persons in the team. "This often include conventional cultural tourism destinations." Most conference organisers, whether five star hotels or travel agencies, provide colour minotrs, mikes, podium, stationery and any other equipment the group requires for its discussions. They also arrange the sightseeing, shopping, campfires, barbecuse and corporate game to go with the programmes.

With seminar gettng more creative, however, it may not be for too long that the summer season will continue to ffer such generious discounts. Who knows if, in a few years, the low season actually becoems the high season?.