As 2010 gets underway, SMERF planners are seeing the resiliency of their segment pay off in a timely turnaround
All those years you spent envying the big corporate meeting planners with their unlimited budgets and glamorous destinations? Turns out you were better off flying under the radar.
“While the majority of the meetings industry is experiencing a decline in group meetings, [our people and properties] are enjoying increases in planner visits, requests for proposals and leads,” says Michele Nichols, Founder of Unique Venues, a company that specializes in matching SMERF planners with unique event venues, meeting facilities and function rooms in North America and the U.K. In fact, Nichols reports that Unique Venues broke records this past January, with nearly 2,000 sales leads from every market segment.
This is just one example of how the SMERF meetings segment is leading the industry out of the doldrums – what MPI Chief Executive Officer Bruce MacMillan calls a “shift from the mindset of survive to thrive” – as things begin to turn around at long last for the MICE industry in general and the SMERF market specifically.
This sentiment is echoed by Unique Venues President Chuck Salem, who recently noted that the SMERF market “seems to be more ‘out of the woods’ than others in the meetings arena.”
No Place Like Home
MPI’s 2010 FutureWatch study notes that the meeting and events industry is transitioning into “an era of creativity, flexibility and strategic relationship-building.” Some of the key trends identified in this year’s report include:
- Less Travel. More meetings located closer to home; fewer participants will travel long distances to get onsite.
- More ROI. Performance that organizations receive from the meetings they host will continue to be a major focus for planners.
- Giving Back. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) will be a continuing interest for organizations and a potential differentiator for companies and associations that can demonstrate a strong, sustainable commitment to effective CSR programs.
Perhaps the most important statistic from the 2010 FutureWatch study is this: U.S.-based planners are expected to plan 21% more meetings while spending 3.5% less per meeting – a tradeoff that most planners would gladly welcome, despite the dip in profits that tighter budgets will bring.
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What Planners Are Saying
Even the big guys – those who tend to plan a number of overseas events each year – are changing their ways: U.S. planners say they expect to locate 80% of their meetings within the U.S. in 2010, compared to just 61% of events in 2009.Delving deeper into the data, respondents to this year’s FutureWatch survey are also predicting the following:
- Competitive pricing will be one of the main cornerstones of the business relationships that underpin a successful event and an effective industry.
- Planners and suppliers will both take a back-to-basics approach to meeting and event transactions, in which value and quality will consistently trump frills, extras and special deals.
- The return on investment (ROI) that organizations receive from the meetings they host will continue to be a major preoccupation for meeting and event planners.
- Technology providers will find an enthusiastic market for affordable Internet access at meeting facilities, and for virtual and Web-based technologies that are becoming an increasingly important part of the meetings mix.
- Respondents agree that industry conditions will begin to improve in the second half of 2010 or in 2011, with 41% of suppliers and 28% of planners predicting gradual industry growth in 2010.
- Meeting and event planners anticipate a 2.8% increase in meetings held and a 4.5% increase in attendance over the next year.
Between 2009 and 2010, FutureWatch research, combined with ongoing data from MPI’s Business Barometer, documented a dramatic shift in meeting and event professionals’ perceptions of their own industry and the surrounding economy, as well as in their strategies for sustaining their business volume, organizations and jobs.
For 2010, some economic confidence has returned, and while budget cuts are still a leading issue, meeting and event professionals’ focus on organizational resources and levels of job responsibility shows that the reality of coping in a new economy has begun to sink in. Bottom line: The majority of planners predict budget cuts, more stringent budget controls, improved operating efficiencies, slight staff reductions, closer attention to value and ROI and/or a general orientation toward doing more with less in the coming year.
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What Our Readers Say…
SMERF Meetings Journal surveyed its readers in 2007 and 2009, asking about event size, budgets, planning, venue selection and a host of other issues. Last month, we polled subscribers again to see what, if anything, has changed over the years.
First, a couple of stats about who our readers are: Just over 37% plan association meetings, while nearly 26% say they’re primarily involved with educational meetings. The next-largest group is a tie between corporate and motivational meetings, followed by religious meetings and fraternal/social meetings.
When asked, “How large is your largest event?” just over 40% say they deal with meetings of 200 people or less, down slightly from 47% who selected this category last year. The next-largest group (25.9%) is at the opposite end of the spectrum, planning events for 1,000-5,000 people. As for experience, in 2007 more than half the planners we surveyed said they had over 10 years of experience; last year that figure dropped to slightly less than 50%. This year, however, it’s back up to around 67%. By contrast, the share of respondents with between 5 and 10 years of experience grew from 25% to 28.5% between 2007 and 2009, but this year dropped back to 22.2%. Other highlights from our 2010 Reader’s Survey:
- 63% say their organization has a Meeting Planning department
- 44% have a staff of fewer than 3 people to help them in their planning efforts
- Again, nearly two-thirds spend 60% or more of their time on meeting planning activities
- The largest share of respondents (38.5%) plan fewer than 10 meeting per year. Last year the largest group said they planned 10 to 30 meeting per year.
- Nearly 60% of respondents expect their budgets to remain the same, compared with just 47.6% last year, while 18.5% expect their budgets to increase.
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