Airport Meet & Greet in MICE & Hotel RFPs (Plain English Definition + Examples)
Definition
Airport meet & greet is a concierge service where a uniformed representative meets attendees at the arrivals gate or hall — typically holding a printed sign with the attendee name or event logo — and escorts them to ground transport.
In day-to-day European event sourcing, airport meet greet sits inside a broader workflow that includes the brief, the longlist, the shortlist, the contract negotiation, and the post-event reconciliation. Understanding it in isolation is not enough — what matters is how it interacts with the other levers a planner can pull. The definition above is the textbook version; the sections below explain how it actually behaves in real RFPs.
Why Airport Meet & Greet matters
Meet & greet eliminates the most stressful 15 minutes of any business trip: the disoriented walk through arrivals trying to find a driver. For VIPs, sponsors, and international attendees unfamiliar with the destination, meet & greet pays back immediately — every NPS detractor study cites 'getting from airport to hotel' as the most common friction point. Cost: €45-95 per attendee, scaling down for groups.
Example
A 90-attendee tech leadership summit pre-books meet & greet for 38 international arrivals at €68 each = €2,584. Survey result: 92% of international attendees rate arrival experience 'excellent', vs 54% prior year (no meet & greet). One Fortune 500 attendee specifically mentions arrival in their post-event LinkedIn post — generating 14 inbound leads to the host company.
Where Airport Meet & Greet appears in contracts
Meet & greet is contracted via the ground transport vendor or a specialist concierge service. Always specify: representative language match, sign protocol, escort destination (curbside vs into the car), wait threshold for delayed flights.
When reviewing a hotel proposal or contract draft, scan for airport meet greet early — it is often easier to negotiate before the supplier has anchored on their preferred position. Easy RFP surfaces these terms in every comparison view so planners can spot deviations from market-standard ranges at a glance, rather than reading 14-page proposals line by line.