Associations NOW Presents

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, recorded live at ASAE’s Annual Meeting & Exposition in Indianapolis, host Molly Ferns of the American Association of Immunologists welcomes Melissa Cherry and Colleen Phalen of Miles Partnership to explore how destinations can elevate the annual meeting experience. They discuss why associations should move beyond transactional relationships with DMOs and CVBs and embrace more strategic partnerships that enhance attendee engagement, create authentic local experiences, and support attendance goals. The conversation also explores rising meeting costs, the growing appeal of second- and third-tier cities, and how AI is changing destination research while making strong human partnerships more important than ever. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/kf_FVuOcm8g This episode is sponsored by Miles Partnership. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings. Transcript Molly Ferns: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Series, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Molly Ferns, the director of marketing with the American Association of Immunologists, and we're recording here in Indianapolis for ASAE's Annual Meeting and Exposition. This episode is sponsored by Miles Partnership, and I'm really excited for this conversation and our guests today, so I'll pass it over to them to introduce themselves. Melissa Cherry: Thanks, Molly. I'm Melissa Cherry. I'm the senior vice president at Miles Partnership, and I lead our brand advocacy practice. Colleen Phalen: Hi, I'm Colleen Phelan, vice president of meetings and events strategy. Very excited for today. Molly Ferns: Awesome. Brilliant. Yeah, I'm very excited for this conversation. I think as a director of marketing on a very small team that works very closely with our meetings team, who is also very small, we definitely are looking at how to amplify the location, the destination of our annual meeting. So I figured we'd start with an icebreaker, if that sounds [00:01:00] good. Yeah. Sounds good. Great. What's a destination that you completely changed your mind about? Colleen Phalen: So I would have to say, actually, I just went to this destination. We work with them. It's Rogers, Arkansas. Molly Ferns: Oh, okay. Colleen Phalen: And I'd actually never been to Arkansas entirely, and then Rogers specifically. And Rogers just has a really cool story. Yes. It's set in a rural setting, but it's where Walmart is headquartered- Mm ... and JB Hunt, and all of these Fortune 500 companies have made it their home and invested in there. Okay. They have Crystal Bridges. They have a convention center. As we're going in meetings and trying to find new destinations, to me, it just really spoke to that sense of discovery and something different and something you can't find anywhere else, but they still have all these great amenities for your attendees with restaurants and the walkability. We travel all the time, and we live in airports, but I took five pictures in their airport because there was all these cool engagements. They had a Crystal Bridges museum [00:02:00] in the airport. Wow. A really cool robotic barista coffee station. Robotic. Molly Ferns: Robotic. Colleen Phalen: Is that not a word? Molly Ferns: I don't know. Colleen Phalen: Okay. But it's really cool about these destinations that people are looking to discover. Everyone wants something new and something exciting and so I just, hats off to Rogers. That's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. Molly Ferns: And how about you, Melissa? Colleen Phalen: So this is a while ago. I would have to say Paducah, Kentucky. Molly Ferns: Okay. Have you been? I have not been to- Okay. ... either Rogers, Arkansas or Paducah, Kentucky. Now I will definitely add it to my list. Yeah. Yeah. Melissa Cherry: This was a minute ago, but I was there for actually a conference. It was UNES