15 July 2008

Growing meeting trend: family reunions

Family reunions are continuing to run full stride towards becoming big business.

One example is in South Florida, where the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau is particularly targeting the market. Officials in Palm Beach County say they are also going after reunions.

A recent poll by the Travel Industry Association found one in three adults Ã¢â¬' about 72 million Ã¢â¬' in the US attended a family reunion in the three previous years.

This summer, Broward County expects to host more than 100 family reunions, helping with planning, goody bags and other perks, Albert Tucker, who oversees multicultural tourism for the county's tourism bureau, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"The business really took off when we started to promote it seven years ago," Mr Tucker said. "Every year, we get more inquiries."

Reunions Magazine estimates at least 200,000 family reunions are held yearly, most in summer and each attracting an average 50 people. Increasingly, the gatherings are weekend affairs, with participants staying two nights at a hotel.

African-Americans tend to have some of the biggest and most elaborate ones, according to the magazine.

Historians say African-Americans pioneered family reunions in the US after the end of slavery nearly 150 years ago and embraced them after the release of the made-for-TV movie Ã¢â¬ÅâœRootsÃ¢â¬~ in 1977.

But tourism leaders seized the business potential in the 1990s, and especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted a surge in interest in family get-togethers.

Disney World and major hotels began offering reunion packages to "rent rooms 20 at a time instead of one at a time," often during summer months, said hotel consultant Scott Brushof Brush & Co. in Miami.

Those married and those with children younger than 18 are most likely to attend a reunion, according to the Travel Industry Association. About one-third of participants traveled at least 500 miles to attend, the latest survey said.

Report by David Wilkening