Posts Categorized: Contracts

kchopson

Craft Hotel Contracts to Reduce Attrition

Perhaps the heart of good meeting planning is the ability to write contracts that cover all potential outcomes of an event. Of all these outcomes, perhaps none is more important than avoiding being hit with attrition fees by the host hotel. As all planners know, these fees can be very costly and, in many cases, can be avoided with a tight contract. Recently I had the pleasure of attending an exciting (!) lecture on Hotel Contracts lead by attorney John S. Foster from Atlanta. The event was put on by the PCMA Chesapeake Chapter and was hosted at the brand... Read more »

kchopson

Tech Tuesday: Put Your Contracts in the Cloud!

Nobody writes contracts like meeting planners. For any given conference, there can be dozen of contracts. These contracts are usually lengthy and quite detailed. Often these contracts are emailed or even faxed(!) to the signing party. This party then signs, copies and then scans or faxes back to the other party for countersigning – and the process repeats. This simple signing process consumes many hours for any given show. Given that meeting planners are usually strapped for time, doesn’t this seem like an easy area to improve? Fortunately, there is great software in the marketplace for making the contracts process... Read more »

kchopson

Meeting Contract Wording for the Worst Case

blizzard

Unexpected events such as Ebola can cause havoc for travel and, consequently, for meetings. This has forced meeting planners to pay more attention to a term that has often been cloaked in mystery. The term is “force majeure”, which literally means “superior force”. While to most people this phrase means an “Act of God”, this phrase actually has a specific legal definition. When used in a legal contract, this provision excuses a party from liability if some unforeseen event beyond the control of that party prevents it from performing its obligations under the contract. To meeting planners, what this means... Read more »