— who serves on eight CABs as well as the DMAI
Meeting Professionals Advisory Board — finds the
time investment worth it. “I obtain a much deeper
understanding of meeting trends — and even the
sociopolitical trends that shape the meetings
business — that, in turn, inform my meeting-
planning work.”
For second-tier destinations, the relationships
made within a CAB’s confines can be particularly
important. “I think that these advisory boards
give second-tier destinations another competitive
advantage,” said Christine “Shimo” Shimasaki,
CDME, CMP, managing director of DMAI’s
empowerMINT.com and Event Impact Calcula-
tor programs. “Because what they’ll gain with a
customer advisory board is not just their opinion,
they gain what their customers’ experiences have
been in other places. Sharing, talking about
what those experiences are, elevates the
destination’s view of what they want to
aspire to, what they need to get to, if
they’re not there already. It puts the
marketplace into context for them.”
NOW AND THEN
The basics haven’t really
changed: CABs typically meet for
about two days every six months
to one year, and range from 10
members to more than twice
that size. Often, members serve
for a specific length of time to
rotate in new members and mix
up the variety.
What has changed is how
DMOs use their CABs. “Ten years
ago, there was much more of a focus
on dates, rates, and space,” said David
Kliman, CMM, president of The Kliman
Group, who has both launched and moder-
ated CABs for a long list of DMOs, from the
Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority to
the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors
Bureau. “That focus is still there, but layered on
top of it is, how can … a DMO partner with you
as a client to make stronger, more effective deci-
sions for your organization, for your clients?”
CABs have become particularly important, Kli-
man said, as DMOs increasingly are asked to
serve as “a conduit to the local intellectual capi-
tal in their destination.”
Kliman offers a hypothetical example: The
Providence Warwick CVB connects a planner
for a major clothing retailer to the Rhode Island
School of Design to put together a workshop on
fashion trends. “That’s where the magic of an
advisory board happens,” Kliman said. “Each
destination has to know what its DNA is all about,
and then has to be able to tell that story effectively
and translate that to its customers. Those con-
versations get massaged and get discussed at an
advisory board meeting. They get tested. They get
reinvented. That’s where [advisory boards] really
are different from what was happening a dozen
years ago.”
As a result, CAB members have the potential to
play a more significant role than ever in shaping a
destination, from its branding to how it handles a
Nelson Fabian
‘I obtain a deeper
understanding of
meeting trends.’
‘What they’ll gain with a
customer advisory board
is what their customers’
experiences have been in
other places. It puts the
marketplace into context
for them.’
