CALL TO ACTION – SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AND KEEP AMERICA MEETING
It’s no secret that the meetings industry has been hurt by the economy. In addition, news regarding the actions of several major corporations like AIG, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have sent clients scrambling to avoid the ‘perception’ of waste during tough times. As a result, the U.S. Treasury Department recently announced new regulations for recipients of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Under TARP, the boards of directors of recipient corporations will be required to adopt a company-wide policy on expenditures related to, among other things, meetings and conferences. As this will have global ramifications on the destination marketing industry, meeting professionals and local communities that support and benefit from this business need to make sure that fair and balanced information reaches the ears of our legislators, the news media and the public at large. ConVis members can play an important role in this education process. Keep America Meeting is a grass roots initiative to generate one million online signatures from people in the meetings industry to demonstrate the economic impacts of meetings to politicians, the media, and business leaders. This is an unprecedented opportunity to join the largest assembled non-partisan coalition of industry partners to come together with one voice to speak about the importance of meetings during these times of great economic uncertainty. The purpose of the initiative is to show the importance of meetings in building business for local communities, and what the potential impact on the economy of a damaged meetings industry is likely to be. Click here to sign the online Keep America Meeting petition today. In addition, invite your employees, members, clients and vendors to sign the Keep America Meeting petition. By doing so, you will help send a message to legislators nationwide that their support is needed in order to hasten the recovery of the U.S. economy. For more information, visit www.keepamericameeting.com.
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