Arnie Weissmann
Does the pandemic still give you intense dreams? Early on -- perhaps a year ago -- when my wife and I awoke, we would share the unusually vivid dreams we had been having during the night. We were to discover that this was a common phenomenon; in Scientific American, a psychiatrist dubbed it the "dream surge."
Are you still dreaming big? I've found that, after getting my second vaccine, my vivid dreams have returned. I don't think it's a result of the messenger-RNA therapies that make the vaccines effective. I think it's because I feel that the vaccine will, as the pandemic did, again radically alter the trajectory of my life. But this time, I feel liberated rather than trapped.
One aspect of professional life that I'm looking forward to is the return of live conferences. I recently spoke with Serge Dive, who founded the International Luxury Travel Market in Cannes, Pure Life Experiences in Marrakech and LE Miami. In other words, he's a guy who dreamed big even before the pandemic.
Dream Serge, if you will.
For decades, his business has been to bring people together physically. And, like my colleagues in Northstar Travel Group's events divisions (and the best event organizers everywhere), Dive understands a show's success is not simply about driving attendance. It's about building a community and shaping a cohesive group of buyers that define the value of a show to suppliers. If you're skilled at identifying an attractive niche audience and create a selling environment that brings value to buyer and seller alike, you'll have a waiting list of both travel advisors wanting to attend and suppliers seeking booth space.
Unlike many event organizers, Dive did not seek to create a virtual version of his shows during the pandemic. He canceled them. I asked what it was like to go for a year unable to do what he had been doing very successfully for so long.
He doesn't see it that way. He has just shifted all his focus to what might have been viewed as the ancillary part of his previous work: Community building.
In the broadest terms, people attend conferences to increase their knowledge, with the goal of making their businesses more profitable. But in the current environment, Dive concluded that although knowledge is still widely accessible, "there is now a thirst for connection rather than knowledge."
His thinking is not too different from the creators of the social media app Clubhouse, where one can eavesdrop on, or participate in, live conversations on various topics with friends, colleagues, celebrities or complete strangers.
Dive, whose event business is called This Is Beyond, recently launched a website called House of Beyond.
Like Clubhouse, it requires an invitation. "We only want people who are relevant and operate in high-end travel," he told me. He is interested in reuniting this community, one he believes is currently living in diaspora.
On one hand, he wants to maintain the momentum and bonds that were created in his shows but also, he said, to serve as an anchor, to remind participants that they're not lost and that they still belong to a community. People may long for large events, he added, but still need the intimacy of community.
Within the House of Beyond are rooms where like-minded people can gather. When I entered the site, I found myself in "The Kitchen Table," a sort of information exchange. It's in some ways a throwback to early chat rooms or forums, with members asking questions like, "I have a client that will be in Barcelona at the end of the week. Can anyone recommend top places that are currently open for lunch?" or "'I'm trying to source some uber-lux villas in Greece. Any leads on which is the best villa rental agency for Greece?"
Special events have been scheduled. After our call, I was invited to conduct a live interview on April 8 for members with Simon Talling-Smith, chief commercial officer for the Commons Project Foundation, which is working on the vaccination passport CommonPass.
Dive envisions additional live, interactive events that take advantage of the longitudinal aspect of time zones, e.g., a live video dinner with participants from Stockholm, Paris, Marrakech and Cape Town.
And he anticipates that House of Beyond will have relevance beyond the pandemic. Like-minded members could organize ski weekends, dinners or retreats.
The venture will, he hopes, be profitable. Members pay dues -- $136 a month at current dollar-pound exchange rates -- and Dive aims to sign up 3,000 members. Additional revenue will come from sponsored presentation opportunities for suppliers.
And, like any club, there are rules: "If anyone is just hustling people [on the forums], they'll be asked to leave."
"You need to know you belong, that you're not lost, that you are part of a community," Dive said. Pure and LE Miami did not occur in 2020 as virtual events, but "the idea of House of Beyond is to harvest that same power of community."