Government spending's (or lack thereof) impact on meetings

It's no secret that the government seems to be in a continuous review of all expenditures large or small. This presents unique challenges for government meetings given they typically operate on lower budgets overall. For those who plan and attend government-sponsored meetings, you know the challenges all too well in producing a successful program.

Often, many government meetings are not able to offer food for their attendees. In this instance, the planner typically will try to choose a hotel that is nearby plentiful eateries. And hopefully the hotel is not too far off the beaten track due to some hotels in more progressive locations often will not offer the government per diem rate. So what's a planner to do? It seems that relationships will be a large part of your success.

It's pretty hard to approach a hotel with offering next to none sleeping rooms (which is how they make most of their money), no food and beverage (which is additional revenue) and oh by the way, they will host upwards of 500 people -- which means you may take most of their space. So it's clear why this type of meeting may not be as attractive to a hotel. But the government is still a good customer and often can fill gaps as needed, AND is often the entity that helps keep hotels going when other business drops off. So on both sides of the aisle -- planner and hotelier -- there has to be a give and take in order to arrive at the best deal. Regardless of our progressive state of technology that seems to breed less human interaction, there will always be a role for phone-to-phone and face-to-face relationships. As government planners, we've found this to be our saving grace in successfully booking and managing these type of programs.

What kind of experiences have you had with this sector?