Can Mentorship Make Customer Advisory Boards More Valuable?

Visit Greater Palm Springs has teamed up with PCMA to launch an advisory board that pairs veteran planners with emerging professionals.

When Visit Greater Palm Springs (VGPS) began thinking about creating a customer advisory board (CAB), one thing that was top of mind was providing more value to participating planners, said Colleen Pace, chief sales and marketing officer for VGPS, the destination marketing organization for Southern California’s Coachella Valley. There’s a sense that in recent years traditional CAB models have had less impact, she said, “and people have less time.” VGPS wanted to design a CAB that was “not just valuable to us as a destination, but also to the meeting planners who are involved.”

In August, VGPS will launch a new model, developed in partnership with PCMA, the publisher of Convene, that combines a mentoring program bringing established and emerging meeting professionals together with a collaborative forum for the exchange of feedback and ideas with VGPS. “Next-gen looks at business very differently,” Pace said, “and by intentionally partnering emerging professionals with seasoned planners, they can learn from each other — and we can learn from them.”

For the less-experienced planners, the CAB offers opportunities not only to learn from more established planners’ experience but to develop business relationships. According to Freeman’s “Gen Z Report: The Value of Live Events in a Digital World,” Gen Z averages 16 strong business relationships, compared with 21 for millennials and 40 for Gen X professionals. And only two in five Gen Z respondents express high confidence in their ability to network and establish strong business relationships, the report said.

“I think it really sets this program apart by creating value for everyone involved,” Pace said. “Meeting professionals have the opportunity to share their expertise while emerging leaders gain valuable mentorship and perspective.” Programs “such as this CAB don’t simply mentor aspiring leaders, they build the workforce our community will rely on in the future,” said PCMA and CEMA President and CEO Sherrif Karamat.

One-on-One, Sector-Specific Mentoring

Membership in the 24-member CAB, which begins this month and will run through 2028, is by invitation, she said. Planners will be organized into three eight-person groups: a tech ring, with planners from corporate tech and West Coast-based technology companies; an association ring, with planners from national associations and nonprofit organizations; and an incentive and luxury ring, with incentive planners and planners from luxury travel agencies and high-end corporate programs. Within each ring, established planners are paired one-on-one with emerging colleagues from the same segment through a structured mentor-mentee model, according to a VGPS press release.

The inaugural year will include virtual sessions in summer and fall and VGPS plans to bring the CAB to Greater Palm Springs in person, Pace said. Education accreditation also  will be offered to members as part of the program. “And the hope is,” Pace said, “when we pair these groups up together, that they really see it as a valuable partnership and relationship, where they’ll meet on their own and use each other as resources along the way.”

“We are proud to stand behind the Visit Greater Palm Springs team in pioneering a model that strengthens the pipeline of business events strategists, while giving destinations a more direct, honest channel to the events strategists they serve,” Karamat said.

Barbara Palmer is Convene’s deputy editor.