Cal Poly's home-sharing annual convention proposal wins PCMA North American Student Competition
A proposal to create an annual convention for home share and vacation rental owners was selected as the winner of PCMA’s North American Student Competition 2019.
Chrissy Baur, Morgan Cutter, Luke Haley, Courtney Frickman and Olivia Larsen represented California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo in the December competition. They were advised by Kevin Lin, Ph.D.
“Most home share and vacation rental owners operate their properties with minimal property management experience,” the Home Sharing Proposal Experience (HSX) stated. “A convention like HSX would allow an opportunity for home sharers and experience providers to expand their knowledge, network and property-management skills.”
PCMA’s North American Student Competition is an annual event to engage students pursuing careers in the business events industry. Collegiate teams from Canada, the United States and Mexico are invited to submit proposals to address industry trends and issues. Three finalist teams were selected to present their proposals via video to a panel of judges from the business events industry.
“Every team that entered impressed us with their knowledge, dedication and enthusiasm for the business events industry and their passion for pursuing professional growth,” said Stacey Shafer, PCMA senior director of community engagement and one of the competition’s judges. “It was challenging for the panel of judges to select a winning proposal, but we felt the Home Sharing Experience Convention proposal best demonstrated how business events deliver economic and social transformation.”
The California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo team will be hosted by the PCMA Foundation to present their proposal during Convening Leaders Jan. 5-8 in San Francisco. Convening Leaders, PCMA’s signature event, attracts thousands of business events professionals from around the world for industry insights, innovations and networking opportunities. They will be joined by Team Voyage from the Singapore Institute of Technology, winners of the 2019 Singapore MICE Challenge.
Runners up to PCMA’s North American Student Challenge competition included the University of Florida team of Alexis Brengman, Julia Clow, Shawna Gray, Cassidy Mandelbaum and advisor Annamarie Sisson and a combined team with Ally Norris and Emily Shirley from University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Janae McKinney and Cameryn Rasmussen of Kansas State University and advisor Kristin Malek, Ph.D., from University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
Judges also included John “Jack” Patronski, executive vice president at GES, and Eduardo Chaillo, global general manager for Latin America at Maritz Global Events and founder of Global Meetings and Tourism Specialists LLC. The competition was moderated by Derrick Johnson, executive director at The National Behavioral Intervention Team Association.