Sites Selected for Upcoming Education Forums

The PAEA Board of Directors has approved the sites for the next two Education Forums. These are Savannah, Georgia, for 2008 and Portland, Oregon, for 2009.

These decisions come after consideration of a number of factors, among them:

• Desirability of the city
• Member feedback on conference surveys
• Airline costs and accessibility (fares at the time of contract
  negotiation are obtained from all areas of the country)
• Geographic location (we look primarily for warmer locations and
  geographic diversity so that over time, the burden of travel is
  distributed equally among attending faculty)

Other logistical issues are also considered, such as availability and quality of meeting space. Because PAEA’s Annual Education Forum requires a comparatively large amount of meeting space relative to the potential revenue generated from our sleeping room block, we are considered less desirable for some larger hotels in airline hub cities.

The 2008 and 2009 sites are the first that have been selected by PAEA since its transition to independent management in 2006. PAEA meetings staff have now taken on responsibility for making recommendations to the board. Through the 2007 Tucson forum, PAEA sites have been researched and negotiated by AAPA staff as part of the Association's management contract with the Academy. AAPA meetings staff brought a wealth of experience and contacts in the meetings industry that allowed PAEA to contract with some locations that would otherwise not have been viable for us, due to their costs. The two resort locations we visited in the past two years — El Conquistador in Puerto Rico and Wild Horse Pass in Phoenix — gave the Association the two highest registration numbers in its meeting history, that is, until this year: registrations for the 2007 forum now surpass those from any previous year.

Increasingly, PAEA has been able to expand the data it collects and takes into account in its site selection process. Some of the items that will figure into upcoming recommendations by PAEA’s meetings staff include

• A decline in the grant funding available at PAEA member programs to support conference travel and registration costs
• An increase in travel/plane fares, due in part to rising fuel costs
• Airline costs and accessibility (fares at the time of contract
  negotiation are obtained from all areas of the country)
• An increase in costs to administer the meeting (e.g., food and beverage and meeting space costs). The cost per head to the Association decreases as the attendance goes up. However, with a small number of participants, the actual dollars involved are still relatively small

Careful attention to meeting costs has enabled the board and Finance Committee to hold conference registration fees steady for six years, despite escalating costs.