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Carnival's New President Presents Pinnacle Award to Landry and Kling - Feb 08
Landry & Kling Cruise Event Services, a cruise-only meeting and incentive travel agency based in Coral Gables, FL, has been inducted into Carnival Cruise Lines' "Pinnacle Club."
Landry & Kling, which was one of Carnival's top 10 group producers, was presented with a highly detailed replica of a Carnival "Fun Ship," and joins an elite group of agencies who meet a certain sales criteria and exhibit excellence in promoting and selling the "Fun Ship" cruise experience.
Pictured here during the induction of Landry & Kling into the "Pinnacle Club" are (from left to right): Carnival's Vice President of Corporate and Incentive Sales Richard Weinstein; Landry & Kling's owner Joyce Landry; Carnival's President & CEO Gerry Cahill; Landry & Kling owner Jo Kling; Carnival's Senior Vice President of Sales and Guest Experience Lynn Torrent; and Vice President of Sales Maurice Zarmati.
Reprinted from Travel Trade
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EVENT: The National Football League's Super Bowl XXXIX, the New England Patriots vs. the
Philadelphia Eagles, Feb. 6, 2005, at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla.
PLANNER: Joyce Landry, president and CEO of Landry & Kling,
Meetings at Sea, a Miami-based company specializing in planning business
events on cruise ships. Landry has worked as a planner since co-founding
the company in 1982.
CHALLENGE: Because Jacksonville was the smallest municipality ever
to bid for the Super Bowl, the pitch for the mega-event hinged upon the
idea of using cruise ships on the city's St. Johns River to supplement the
local hotel room inventory.
"The host committee wanted to have the ships operate like floating hotels, so corporate sponsors
could move ship to ship and have freedom and flexibility," says Landry. "Also, they wanted to
allow the general public and sponsors from other hotels to come on board and use the ships as a
venue."
Once Jacksonville won the chance to host the big game, it was up to Landry & Kling to attend to
all the details of arranging for the ships.
SOLUTION: First, Landry had to determine what size cruise ships could be accommodated on
the river. "We had so many bridges and overhead electric wires, we had to limit the height of the
boats. Then we had to make sure they fit the depth and length of the docking facility," she says.
It took a full year to identify and contract five appropriate vessels: Three ships came from
Holland America Line, and one each from Carnival and Radisson Seven Seas. Together, the
ships offered 3,667 deluxe and luxury rooms, 35 bars, 25 entertainment venues, 15 restaurants
and five spas. More than 50 corporate sponsors of the game held 60-plus events, all coordinated
through Landry & Kling.
"You can imagine that, in this new world, there was a multilevel approach to security," says
Landry. "We had to satisfy federal and state agencies, plus the Coast Guard and the Jacksonville
sheriff's office."
Another challenge: to make sure the cruise ships would have no negative environmental impact.
The vessels were hooked up to city utilities for water and electricity, so there were zero
emissions.
In the end, the creative plan worked well. "People see the teamwork that takes place on the field
and often miss the teamwork that is off the field," Landry says. "It's invisible. That's what we're
proudest of - the ability to pull it off seamlessly."
Reprinted from Meetings & Conventions Magazine March 2005
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MAY 01, 2006 - -- It is a sad fact that according to the most recent research on
the progress of gender equality in the workplace, the glass ceiling is still solidly in
place at many U.S. offices. Women are underrepresented in the upper ranks of
industries as diverse as education, accounting and law, and those who do rise up
the corporate ladder can expect to earn just seventy-six cents for every dollar
earned by their male counterparts.*
LEADING WOMEN
Martha Rogers: Founding partner, Peppers & Rogers Group Consulting
Gail Fitzgerald: Vice President, Hotel Sales & Marketing, Bellagio.
Lois LeMenager: Chairman of the Board and CEO, Marketing Innovators
International.
Michelle Smith: Vice President, Business Development, O.C. Tanner. Vice President, Incentive
Marketing Association.
Marilyn Carlson-Nelson: CEO and Chairman, Carlson Companies.
Karen Renk: Executive Director, Incentive Marketing Association.
Brenda Anderson: CEO, Society of Incentive & Travel Executives.
Norma Jean Knollenberg: Owner and CEO, Top Brands Inc.
Joyce Landry and Josephine Kling: Founding partners of Landry & Kling Meetings at Sea.
The good news is that this disparity seems to be less pronounced in the incentive industry than in many
others. Women are well represented in top positions at many incentive houses, destination management
companies and industry associations, and they are gaining ground in the traditionally male-dominated
special markets divisions of manufacturers.
The 10 women profiled below are among the best and brightest minds working in the performance field
today. Each has taken her own path to success, with personal motivations that range from frustration to
family obligation. But with a combination of creativity, courage, resourcefulness, tenacity and attention to
detail (qualities of great use for any incentive planner), all have excelled. Together they serve as role
models to those of us currently working in the industry and to the young women and men of the next
generation.
Joyce Landry and Josephine Kling: Founding partners of Landry & Kling Meetings at Sea.
For Joyce Landry and Josephine Kling, founding partners of Landry & Kling
Meetings at Sea, there's nothing tiresome about shipping off. Even after 25 years of
planning cruise events for corporate groups, they see each new project as a
challenge to surpass all the ones before it. "We're excitement junkies," confesses
Kling. "We like it when we are presented with challenges. If things were boring, I
don't think we would continue doing this."
From a startup company in 1982 built on $26,000, an office in Manhattan and a list
of contacts, Landry & Kling has become a textbook example of how to successfully
build a niche market and is now the first name for corporations looking to host
meetings and incentives on the water, with a client list that includes AFLAC,
Motorola and AIG. In the meantime, the company has weathered its share of rough
seas: In 1998, Landry & Kling was acquired by a private entity that specialized in
consumer travel, and Kling left the company for personal reasons. "The intent was to
have a bigger, better company," recalls Landry of that period. "It was great for a while. But I had a
growing disinterest to work as hard as I was working and not have a stake in it." By 2005, Kling was ready
to return, and the pair arranged to buy back the company they had founded. Today, Landry & Kling sends
out an average of 25 to 30 trips per year and is looking to expand into international markets.
Their extraordinary partnership has certainly contributed to their success. "I think we balance each other
well," says Landry. "Jo is very strong in marketing; I am very strong in sales. We fill in the gaps for each
other." The two women met while working for cruise line Holland America and decided to partner when
they saw an opportunity to sell corporations on the cruise experience. "Nobody thought it was a good idea
when we started," recalls Landry. "We were paving ways, and it took a bit of innocence just to keep on
going."
The most important lesson learned from their early experience was how to
manage their limited budget, while ensuring clients had a top-drawer
experience. But after being written up in a few magazines and scoring a brief
spot on the NBC Today show, the young company's business took off. "To be
honest, luck had a lot to do with it," admits Landry.
Luck and a lot of persuasion. To sell clients on just how unique a cruise event
can be, Landry and Kling have had to work around the sometimes limited
imaginations of cruise operators. "We often feel like lobbyists onboard,"says
Kling, "We ask for exceptions to their normal policy, so we can provide an
experience people would not have on their own."
Landry advises anyone entering the industry "not to be afraid to roll up their
sleeves. If someone gets into this business and feels that pursuing some little
detail is not their job, that person is not going to go far. You have to be willing to
take on anything to show the client you have what it takes."
Looking back on their careers, both women laugh at the naivete with which they began on this path, but
they acknowledge that they wouldn't change a thing. Says Landry, "We are happy that we started this
[business] at a point when we were fearless. Once they get older, people have so much fear that they
stop themselves [from taking big risks]."
For Kling, returning to her old job has not meant lapsing into an old routine: "We are recreating the wheel
with every program. I think of it as a great fun puzzle." She admits that sometimes the drive for constant
novelty can be demanding, but says her greatest motivation is "introducing people to a new experience,"
like looking up at a night sky from the middle of the ocean, where the stars and constellations have little
interference from smog or electricity.
As for Landry, "I get a lot of inspiration out of the travel I have gotten to doÑbeing in an exotic location
and being treated like a local, seeing people's faces light up when they see something new. It's really true what they say about being on the same boat together; it builds a strong bond." She recalls a memorable
moment standing on the back deck of a ship with one of her clients as they looked out on the Bosphorus
Sea. "He looked over at me and said, 'It doesn't get any better than this.' And I really had to agree."
Fast Fact: Given the opportunity to design an incentive trip for themselves, Kling would set off for the
rugged beauty of Alaska, while Landry would set her sights on rugged, but warmer, regions in the Aegean
Sea.
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Companies have traditionally favored hotels and resorts when they wanted to reward top-performing sales representatives, giving them vacations in sunny places like Arizona, Florida and Hawaii, with golf, tennis and water sports among the allures.
But for the last decade, the cruise industry has been campaigning hard for some of that business and has been winning corporate converts.
Industry officials contend that cruises are less expensive than comparable resorts because the cabins, conference rooms, meals and entertainment are all included in the price. In addition, some of the smaller ships afford companies privacy and networking opportunities that they may not get on land.
"Companies want to share sales figures and product plans with the team they've brought on board," said Joyce Landry, chief executive of Landry & Kling Meetings at Sea, a cruise consultant. "If they're on a charter — with the ship to themselves — they can control who knows what."
Cruise ships have one other advantage, at least from the companies' point of view — their top salespeople have no choice but to participate in the shipboard business sessions. Or, as Bill Connors, executive director of the National Business Travel Association, which represents some 2,400 corporate travel managers, put it, "You have a captive audience that can't easily walk away."
While companies are generally trying to hold the line on travel spending, the getaways are meant specifically to reward and motivate the people who are selling products that have a major impact on a company's bottom line. Most of the gatherings, in fact, include informal get-togethers in which the chief executive discusses strategy and future sales goals.
Hotel representatives counter that many of the advantages cited by the cruise industry are not advantages at all.
"The only difference between a resort and a cruise ship is that a ship moves and can change its itinerary," said Robert E. Dirks, a senior vice president at Hilton Hotels Corporation. "We put together all-inclusive packages just the way the cruise industry does."
Cruises now account for some 20 percent of what is known as "incentive travel," according to Brenda Anderson, president of the Society of Incentive and Travel Executives.
Patrick Mitchell, head of corporate business for Royal Caribbean International, said the number of companies booking cruises had grown significantly in the last two years.
"We saw incentives climb some 50 percent in 2005," Mr. Mitchell said. "And 2006 looks like another banner year."
The rise in such bookings has come at a good time for the industry, which, according to Micky Arison, chairman and chief executive of the Carnival Corporation, experienced "some softness" in bookings earlier this year. He attributed that largely to the lingering impact of last year's hurricane season. But some travel agents, like Evan Eggers of SureCruise.com, are reporting strong bookings because of price cuts.
Chartering a ship for an incentive cruise can cost corporate clients well over $2 million, according to Richard Weinstein, head of incentive programs for Carnival Cruise Lines. A boutique ship like the Legend, Pride or Spirit from Seabourn Cruise Line costs $85,000 to $110,000 a day for a four-day charter to Nassau, or about $750,000 for a seven-day sail around the Caribbean.
Incentive cruises are only a small segment of the $150 billion meetings and incentive industry in the United States, which includes everything from gift-reward companies to hotels and resorts to the services of incentive consultants.
Insurance companies head the pack of cruise enthusiasts. Not far behind are auto, financial services, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and beverage companies.
"We've done Ford, Avon, Bristol-Myers, Bank of America, Sun Life and Aflac," Mr. Mitchell, of Royal Caribbean, said, adding, "It's nice to have marquee names, but smaller companies in Peoria and beyond are our bread-and-butter business."
But there is a carrot-and-stick strategy built into incentive cruises. The trip at sea can take the form of an Alaskan cruise for Harley-Davidson dealers or a tour of the Baltic Sea for Pacific Life sales representatives. But when a cruise segues into a business meeting, it can actually benefit the incentive winners: it minimizes the gift tax they are obligated to pay to the Internal Revenue Service for the trip.
"We're running off a Travel Management 101 course for some of our members during a two-day cruise this month aboard Freedom of the Seas," said Mr. Connors of the National Business Travel Association, referring to Royal Caribbean's 160,000-ton ship, the world's largest luxury cruise ship. As with large groups on the bigger ships, the travel managers will share the array of shipboard diversions with the other passengers but drink and dine mostly in separate areas.
Companies that use incentive travel say the trips are not merely frills. For example, Pampered Chef, a marketer that sells kitchen tools through home parties, has recruited its 60,000 "independent contractors" partly by telling them they can earn incentive trips.
In the last two months, Pampered Chef has sponsored three incentive cruises for some 3,300 sales representatives aboard Royal Caribbean ships, with a precruise stay at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, Fla., for the best sales producers.
Officials at Aflac, the health insurer, which has 63,000 sales associates, said the company had seen upswings in sales after cruises, but acknowledged there is no sure way to measure the return on the investment.
"Word of mouth is better than R.O.I. in judging results," said David A. Nelson, Aflac's incentive expert. He said that the company planned to send the 200 members of its President's Club, which honors top sales performers, on a cruise from Monaco next year .
Some of the small cruise lines that provide luxury suites for up to 200 passengers — Seabourn, Silversea Cruises, SeaDream Yacht Club and Windstar Cruises — offer an entire ship. They say the intimacy makes it easy to network in cozy surroundings and sometimes chat with the head of the company, who was only a distant figure back at the office.
May 9, 2006
Cruise and Schmooze
By PAUL BURNHAM FINNEY
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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