We recently announced that meeting planners will be able to pick up a copy of Elite Meetings magazine at major airport newsstands, and this week I received confirmation that our presence on airport newsstands is a huge success. In fact, we received a reorder today from Hudson News for Houston area airports, which indicates that Elite Meetings magazine is selling well. That was music to my ears!
This news is extremely encouraging to us and the “Elite Certified” hotels and resorts we’ve featured inside. People just don’t pay $6.95 for a magazine so they can throw it away after they read it…especially in this economic environment. This is an investment they’ve made in a resource that they can refer back to when trying to find inspiration on where to take their next group. They can also rest assured they are only looking through a selection of the “best of the best” hotels and resorts, because they’ve all been certified as great properties for groups by the Elite Meetings Advisory Board.
We took a risk on newsstand distribution for a few reasons.
- It dawned on us that meeting planners spend a significant amount of time in airports (just like we do) waiting for flights, so why not provide them with a magazine that has content relevant to their business life. They are more than likely going to or coming back from a site inspection or one of their own events, so meetings are top of mind.
- We also recognized the fact that there are no meetings-related magazines available on airport newsstands (at least we couldn’t find any), so we just might be able to “corner the market” (I say that with a grin).
- While we may have a great database of registered planners using EliteMeetings.com who are also subscribers, there are tens of thousands more out there who have meeting planner roles, but just don’t have the meeting planner title. These are the folks we want to help the most, as they are very likely relatively new in the industry and need as much guidance as possible.
- Lastly, on a selfish note, it creates additional branding of Elite Meetings and the value of what we do….rate hotels and resorts, then publish “groupcentric” information on them for meeting planners seeking the best for their groups.
While we also provide this same content on EliteMeetings.com, our success on the newsstands just confirms what we already knew…print isn’t dead. So, the next time you are in an airport waiting for your flight, drop by a Hudson Newsstand and see if there are any copies of Elite Meetings magazine left. If you don’t find a copy there, please drop me a note and we’ll make sure to send them more copies. Safe travels!
by on July 15, 2011
