Meticulous Meeting Management
Meeting needs. Meeting budgets. More than meeting expectations.
The Curry Company offers a wide range of meeting management services that will save you time and money on your next meeting. We support a variety of events including:
General meetings
Conferences
Conventions
Special Events
Trade Shows
Incentive Travel Programs
Cruises
And many more
We know that planning meetings are a time-consuming and often complicated affair. That’s why the personalized services we offer are designed to make your job as manageable as possible, freeing you to take care of your many other demands while we take care of you.
Our offerings are broadly divided into no-cost and fee-service categories. We work hard to maximize your budget at every opportunity. And we embrace a “no surprises” philosophy that results in strong, long-term relationships with our clients.
Why no cost?
Not all meeting planning firms are created equally. We’re certainly not.
At The Curry Company, we do our best to build in as many meeting services as possible under our “no fee umbrella.” With our experience, we can negotiate many meeting services with the hotels on a no-fee basis which minimizes your budget and maximizes your meeting experience.
We negotiate room rates that are commissionable to us, and in most cases even lower than you would receive on your own. How? Through our solid, long-standing associations with hotels and resorts, our history of working on the hotel side of the business, and our years of experience negotiating on behalf of our clients.
The following services are at no cost to you:
Free Services:
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Site Selection and Inspection
Great meetings begin with great venues.
Finding that proverbial needle-in-a-haystack is part of what we do.
In the meeting business there’s no such thing as one size fits all. Hotels, resorts, and conference centers all have a unique character, a key element that can determine the level of your meeting.
There is no need to contact multiple sites and explain your program multiple times. We will. We consider the elements that are relevant to your specific meeting, including an overall budget, room rate, type of property, meeting space size and flexibility, food quality, location, airport proximity, and many more. If it is important to you, it is important to us. We handle the initial research and then offer creative and highly qualified options in a report format that is concise, efficient, and comprehensive.
Recommending a meeting venue is one job; making sure it’s the right fit is another matter entirely.
As part of our no-cost services we’ll arrange for you to make on site inspections of the properties that interest you, allowing you to evaluate the facilities, services and amenities for yourself. These arrangements include setting up complimentary accommodations for you and providing a full itinerary for your tours of each property.
It’s your decision and we know a lot goes into it. Often it’s about logistics, details, and service levels as well as a property’s feel. We will make sure you have the opportunity to see and experience as much as possible in order to make an informed decision.
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Contract Negotiations
A great meeting is only as good as its contract.
For decades we have honed the art of negotiating meeting contracts that offer the very best rates and services. Since we’re experts, we also make sure that extra costs such as meeting room rentals, attrition penalties, shipping fees and other add-ons are minimized—or even eliminated.
We represent you and only you in the process, and while we do the hard work of driving the best deal we can, the client is in control every step of the way. This translates into informed decision-making, an efficient budget and better meetings.
When you finally sign, you’ll have the best possible deal.
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Menu Planning
The menu makes the meeting.
Whether it’s coffee service and sweet rolls in the morning, to hot and cold lunches to themed dinner party experiences, your meeting will often be best remembered by the cuisine enjoyed.
There’s an art to menu planning, and it’s learned over many years of experience. Menus need to be studied carefully, sampled, budgeted, and flexible enough to fit into particular attendee needs and restrictions.
The Curry Company has on staff catering and food and beverage executives who have spent their professional careers creating menus. This experience has proven itself time and time again on behalf of the clients we serve and is well worth the investment.
Fee-based Services
A large majority of the services we offer won’t cost you a penny. Instead, we’re compensated by commissions paid from meeting venues that value your business. With our experience and negotiating skills, we can achieve better overall pricing that includes our commission for less than you can obtain on your own.
Still, there are times when meeting planning complexities, your schedule, and other issues make it a good idea to use The Curry Company professionals for additional, fee-based services. We work this way in a number of areas that have proven highly cost-effective for our clients, and we always estimate any charges in advance.
We offer the following Fee-Based services:
For a Fee:
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On-site Management
Sometimes you just have to be there.
For those critical meetings when an extra set of eyes, ears, and hands is needed, we can attend the meeting with you as your professional and highly competent hotel liaison.
We’ve worked as smart, savvy, on-site coordinators for years. We know the ins and outs of the hotel and resort meeting business and know all the right questions to ask to make sure you get the best contract and program available. From handling site inspections to being there day and night during the event, we can do it all.
We can make your job much easier.
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Budget / Invoice
Where it starts. Where it goes. And how to make it balance.
Meeting budgets can be a labyrinth of categories, sub-categories, and individual line items. The reality is that developing a budget can be one of the most daunting challenges in planning a meeting, followed only by reconciling your budget with the actual spending.
We can help you craft a meticulously prepared budget that goes as deeply in detail as you or your superior require, then make sure absolutely sure you stay within budget at every step. We also can take on the very detailed task of matching invoices to budgeted spends, making sure every dollar is accounted for, every service received, every promise met.
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Online Registration
Make it easy.
At The Curry Company, we use online registration systems that make it simple and convenient for your attendees to register for meetings.
We can set up custom web solutions for your website—or a standalone registration site—that make it easy to collect registrations, create room lists, send confirmations, track responses, and otherwise dramatically simplify the meeting sign-up process.