LEXINGTON, Ky. — Small Market Meetings and Unique Venues, two organizations that have long championed smaller cities and nontraditional venues for meetings and conventions, have entered into a marketing partnership.
Small Market Meetings has covered the meeting and convention business and venues in second- and third-tier cities for the past decade. The monthly newspaper is read by 10,000 meeting planners nationwide.
Unique Venues’ roots date to a directory of meeting venues on 140 college campuses that was created in 1986 by company founder Michele Nichols. Today, Unique Venues has expanded its niche to include nontraditional venues of every stripe — from arenas and stadiums to historical and cultural venues. It represents hundreds of properties in the United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
“It’s great to have this new partnership with Unique Venues,” said Small Market Meetings publisher Mac Lacy. “Our staffs have worked together over the years on articles involving Unique Venues’ services and its members, and we’re happy to be able to formalize this relationship. As part of this partnership, Chuck Salem, president of Unique Venues, will be submitting articles for our Meetings at a Glance online newsletter, and we certainly appreciate his expertise in that regard.”
Said Salem, “Unique Venues is excited to be partnering with Small Market Meetings. Their penetration into the secondary and tertiary markets is vital to Unique Venues’ ability to reach meeting planners.
“We have hundreds of unique meeting site options in cities on the edge of major metro areas and in the smaller metropolitan areas. We are eager to directly market to planners looking to place meetings and events in these areas.
“Based upon Small Market Meetings’ professional experience and reputation in marketing to and for these areas, a partnership with them is both mutually beneficial and strategic for both organizations.”
The partners will promote one another by providing links on their respective websites. Each organization will also provide stories for the others website and print publications.
Unique Venues will help promote the annual Small Market Meetings Conference and will have a booth at the conference’s tradeshow.
“Unique Venues represents many distinctive meeting properties and sites in second and third-tier U.S. cities, so to be able to work together to publicize those is a win-win for everyone,” said Lacy. “We’d love to see Unique Venues become a very visible part of our new Small Market Meetings Conference in the future as well.”
For a look at the services Unique Venues provides and venues it represents, take a look at the 2010 Unique Venues Annual Planner’s Guide mailed with this issue of Small Market Meetings.
866-356-5128
www.smallmarketmeetings.com
877-244-6110
www.uniquevenues.com
