Every frequent traveler should be enrolled in a loyalty plan. Whether you’re traveling for business, leisure or bleisure, why miss out on earning something extra from your well-spent miles? Membership fees are generally affordable and reward points can accumulate quickly. And these points are no joke. You can redeem them for hotel stays, free miles, cash back and more.

When it comes to choosing the right loyalty program, it’s best to employ a one-size-doesn’t-fit-all approach. If you have yet to proclaim loyalty to one particular airline or hotel brand, find out which is perfect for you. Bon voyage and enjoy the membership perks!

The official “Smart is Cool Day,” occurs every October 22. The holiday is pretty self-explanatory, but we wanted to embrace the day that epitomizes our philosophy. We think meeting planners are the smartest—and what’s cooler than intellect? So we’re challenging our readers to try and outwit a meeting planner’s killer-knowledge.

thankful

Colorful turkey cut-outs and pumpkin-spiced everything should clue you in—Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Meaning, the pressure is on to be thankful. Although being a professional planner comes with a great deal of stress, travel and lack of sleep, there are a lot of good reasons people eagerly enter the field each year. Need some help getting started on a thankful list? Here are five things every planner can put down.

1. You’re Cultured and Full of Stories

Event planners are no strangers to airport terminals and hotel check-ins. Traveling to interesting places will inevitably lead to fascinating cultural exposure.

2. Full Circle of Friends and Contacts

Being a people-person is both a prerequisite and a consequence of being an event planner. Every encounter only further cultivates this skill.

3. Stress is a Lifestyle

OK, bear with us. This might not sound like an ideal constant state. However, you can certainly appreciate your ability to thrive under pressure and manage copious amounts of pressure.

4. Your Passion and Creativity Flows

Meeting and event planning is a field for the passionate. Plus, from unique problem-solving strategies to artful event execution, planners are never short on opportunities to engage their creative minds.

5. Fulfilling Sense of Purpose

Event planners are in the business of experiences and connections. In one of our quizzes, responses revealed that 44 percent of planners believe that everyone leaving happy is what makes an event memorable. You work toward this goal every day and accomplish it more than you may realize.

[wpViralQuiz id=111667]

[wpViralQuiz id=112026]

If you’re hungry for adventure, this is the right quiz for you. Pick some meals, and we’ll show you where you should be eating around the globe.

Keep an eye out for the full quiz results in the May issue of Smart Meetings.

[wpViralQuiz id=115450 columns=3]

google-travel-appsDestination marketers: Your new favorite Google site has arrived. Think with Google, the search behemoth’s marketing research team, recently unveiled Google Travel Dashboard. The dashboard is a free online tool that drills down deep into data relating to travel around the United States. The data relates specifically to air travel, hotel bookings and car rentals.

The data, which will be updated every quarter, is meant to reveal trends among U.S. travelers. Want to know which destinations people from Orlando (or 24 other U.S. cities) fly to most often? New York City, turns out.

Maybe even more interesting to CVBs is data on where people are coming from. For example, the dashboard shows that people booking hotels in Atlanta came primarily from NYC, Nashville, Chicago, Birmingham and Charlotte. Data also include year-over-year change for each destination (each section includes some different cities). There’s no specific data on how travelers booked their stays.

Trends in search volume are also big topics on Google Travel Dashboard. Search trends cover queries related to air travel, hotels, car rentals, cruises and vacation rentals. Notes on the graphs show peak times for queries related to travel seasons (summer, Spring Break, etc.) and events, such as how air travel searches spiked after the disappearance of the Malaysian Air flight 370.

The new tool has you covered on overall most popular city-to-city itineraries as well, with Los Angeles to Las Vegas topping the chart, followed by NYC to Chicago, NYC to Miami, LA to NYC and NYC to LA.

Digging deeper, charts reveal insights on brand searches. Marriott, Hampton Inn, Hilton, Holiday Inn and Best Western topped hotel searches, and Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Allegiant and United were the most-searched airlines.

For mobile marketing needs, Google Travel Dashboard also tracks the most common types of searches performed on mobile devices. Hotel searches made up half of mobile queries, followed by tours and attractions, air travel, car rental and cruises.

Other data provided include top travel-related Google searches (led by “When is the best time to book a flight?”), latest travel news and top travel videos.

The data presented doesn’t give hard numbers, but rather rates the top finding in each group at 100 and all others lower, relative to the leader.

healthiest airports

Tens of thousands of passengers pass through international airports annually, so they’re hotbeds for catching a bug. For busy professionals, catching a cold can be quite a hindrance, so it’s important for them to remain healthy.

Online travel website Netflights.com ranked the top 25 healthiest airports in the world—airports that are making strides to make sure passengers stay healthy—physically and mentally. They were rated on a scale of 1–23, based on several factors, including access to yoga classes, gyms and outdoor spaces. Here are the top 10 airports from the list. 

10. Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ)

Score: 13

This is the busiest airport in Canada and second-busiest in North America. It’s set up for sleeping, as winter delays are a common occurrence. It features designated rest zones, free sleep zones and Muskoka chairs.

9. San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

Score: 13

The seventh-busiest airport in the United States, SFO is a major hub for flights throughout North America and a popular gateway for flights to Europe and Asia.

8. Haneda Airport (HND)

Score: 14

Just 30 minutes from central Tokyo, HND is Japan’s busiest airport. To combat stress-inducing busyness, the airport features plenty of places to relax, such as spas, green spaces and relaxation areas.

7. John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)

Score: 15

JFK is the primary international airport in New York City and busiest international air gateway in North America. In the event of a layover, wind down in one of the three relaxation spaces, spas or yoga classes. If it turns out you have more time, check out The Metropolitan Museum of Art store in Terminal 4.

6. Vancouver International Airport (YVR)

Score: 15

The second-busiest airport in Canada is surrounded by a lot of remarkable greenery. Make the most out of your layover by taking a quick trip Iona Beach or Flight Path Park.

5. Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)

Score: 16

At HKG, you can enjoy local cuisine or even grab a quick massage. If you have the time, you can take it easy at any of the many amenities, including meditation and relaxation spaces, the spa and the massage center.

4. Changi Airport (SIN)

Score: 18

Located in the most populated country in the world and serving as one of the major transport hubs in the world, SIN in Singapore is filled with plenty of entertainment, including a cinema theater, as well as gardens and several rooftop swimming pools.

3. Dubai International Airport (DXB)

Score: 19

A major gateway for travel between Europe and Asia, DXB is the busiest airport for international travelers. It has a Zen garden filled with fish ponds, shrubs and palm trees, allowing passengers to chill out before, after and in-between flights.

2. Schiphol Airport (AMS)

Score: 20

Partly due to its proximity to Amsterdam’s city center, AMS is ranked as the world’s best airport to have a layover. Add to that the many green spaces, yoga studios and spas, and you may not ever make it out of the airport.

1. Frankfurt Airport (FRA)

Score: 21

In 2017, more than 54 million people passed through. FRA is the busiest airport in Germany and the eighth-busiest in the world­—partially due to the city’s status as a major financial center—and the healthiest. It boasts relaxation spaces, yoga classes, prayer rooms and outdoor green spaces galore.

lgbtq

Thirteen hotel companies and six airlines received a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index 2019 (CEI), and thereby were designated as Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.

They were among the 572 businesses from nearly every industry and region of the United States that earned a 100 percent ranking on the survey—which was first implemented in 2002 by Human Rights Campaign Foundation. It measures concrete steps employers have taken to ensure greater equity for LGBTQ workers and their families.

More: The All-Inclusive Meetings Revolution

The following hotel companies received perfect scores in all nine categories (see sidebar) that were judged: Caesars Entertainment Corp., Choice Hotels International, Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Hilton Inc., Hyatt Hotels Corp., InterContinental Hotels Group Americas, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Marriott International Inc., MGM Resorts International, Quaintance-Weaver Management LLC, Wyndham Destinations, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Inc. and Wynn Resorts Ltd.

These airlines also received perfect scores: American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue Airways Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc.

The survey is based on three pillars: nondiscrimination policies across business entities; equitable benefits for LGBTQ workers and their families; and supporting an inclusive culture and corporate social responsibility. This year’s rating criteria included ensuring full spousal and partner health care coverage parity; affirming coverage for transition-related care and eliminating all “transgender exclusions” from plans; and ensuring full LGBTQ including in diverse supply-chain programs.

HRC President Chad Griffin emphasized the significant impact that the high-scoring businesses are making.

“The top-scoring companies on this year’s CEI are not only establishing policies that affirm and include employees here in the United States—they are applying these policies to their global operations and impacting millions of people beyond our shores,” he said. “Many of these companies have also become vocal advocates for equality in the public square, including the dozens that have signed on to amicus briefs in vital Supreme Court cases and the more than 180 that have joined HRC’s Business Coalition for the Equality Act.

Related: Frankfurt Tops List of Healthy Airports

“Time and again, leading American businesses have shown that protecting their employees and customers from discrimination isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s also good for business.”

Qualifications

Companies earned points in the CEI survey for meeting the standards listed below.

  • Prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation for all operations
  • Prohibits discrimination based on gender identity for all operations
  • Equivalency in same- and different-sex spousal medical and soft benefits
  • Equivalency in same- and different-sex domestic partner medical and soft benefits
  • Equal health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for medically necessary
  • Three LGBTQ internal training and education best practices
  • Employee group or diversity council
  • Three distinct efforts of outreach or engagement to broader LGBTQ community, and if supplier diversity program is in place, must include LGBTQ suppliers
  • Contractor/supplier nondiscrimination standards and philanthropic giving guidelines