Hot News

 Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta has just gotten into the remote sky cap business. The service, offered through Baggage Airline Guest Services (BAGS, Inc), headquartered in Orlando, FL, and available at several meeting venues, offers complete bag service at the meeting site—issuing boarding passes, checking luggage and delivering the luggage to designated flight—reducing the time meeting travelers spend at the airport and increasing the time they can remain at an event.

The Renaissance Nashville Hotel, adjacent to Nashville’s Convention Center, has just completed a $9 million renovation and redesigned interiors that reflect the music history of this great, "Music City." The Renaissance Nashville Hotel offers 649 guest rooms, 24 suites, 18 meeting rooms and 31,000 square feet of total meeting space. The renovation incorporated elements of the Music City theme with a broadened interpretation to include most musical genres such as jazz, country, rock and classical. The music motifs are featured throughout the entire hotel, most notably in the lobby and the bridge area that overlooks downtown and connects the hotel to the adjacent parking garage across Commerce Street.

The Compass Ridge Conference Center in Woodstock, Illinois—located just 90 minutes from downtown Chicago and less than 60 minutes from O’Hare Airport—is a newly re-branded meeting venue that features updated services and facilities as well as a unique team-building program. Compass Ridge Conference Center is situated among rolling hills, wooded walking trails, a spring-fed lake and three ponds, and featuring 10,400 square feet of flexible business meeting space, including a 200-seat main hall, two large seminar rooms capable of seating up to 60 people, and 10 breakout rooms, plus 60 acres of flexible outdoor-use space.

 Last Month, meeting planners received another incentive to organize meetings, conventions, trade shows and other events in Puerto Rico. That new incentive is on incentive items and other giveaways—products and materials that under Commonwealth law, a sales tax had to be paid when leaving Puerto Rico. This "incentive item tax" is no more.