 |
|
|
|
|
Introduction
The state of the meetings industry in early 2009 is…unsettled. For many, this year (and 2010 as well) will be a time of smaller budgets, fewer meetings, greater accountability and general cutbacks. But on the plus side (if a silver lining is to be found in all of this), planners will likely see lower room rates, better bargaining power and fewer nights on the road.
That’s the general consensus among more than 2,700 planners who participated in MPI’s annual FutureWatch survey, as well as respondents to a SMERF Meetings Journal readership survey conducted last month. The charts and graphs on the following pages provide a snapshot of where we are now and what trends are likely to impact the meetings industry in the near term. Measure your own performance against these industry benchmarks – and here’s to a quick recovery and a better outlook on the horizon!
The Downside…
 Meeting planners and suppliers expect that global economic uncertainty will lead to continued reductions in bookings, travel, meeting and event budgets, staffing, and event attendance. The overall trend will continue, they say, until the broader economy begins to rebound
. - Corporate meeting planners are already changing the way they do their jobs in response to serious budget reductions, and 17% predict further cuts in 2009. Twelve percent of association planners and 10% of government planners expect budget cuts in the next year. Several government planners reported that their meetings are “required,” and therefore less vulnerable to the economic pressures facing the private sector.
- Planners expect net profit per meeting to increase by 2%, while gross revenue per meeting declines by 8%.
- As a percentage of organizations’ overall budgets, meetings will decrease by 6% in 2009.
- Attendance, per meeting, is expected to increase by 3% in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and 9% in Canada, but decline by 5% in the United States. U.S. planners expect 15% fewer attendees at association meetings but 12% higher numbers at corporate meetings.
- Across all regions, 12% of association planners expect conference attendance to decline in 2009, due to corporate budget cuts and high travel costs. A small number of association planners also expect their organizations to lose members. Membership numbers and conference attendance are expected to recover once the economy improves.
- Although meeting organizations will be on the lookout for employees with the right training, education, experience, and attitude, about 7% of meeting professionals predict a shortage of qualified staff in 2009.
- Meeting planners anticipate a 9% decrease in the number of meetings their organizations will hold in 2009, a 3% decrease in staffing, and a 5% increase in the number of meetings they will personally plan, manage, or support.
- Independent meeting management professionals are preparing for a 0.5% decrease in the number of meetings their organizations will support. But their expectations for the year ahead vary considerably by region, with US independents predicting a decline in business but their counterparts in EMEA, and especially Canada, expecting more activity.
- Planners predict a scant 2% increase in average expenditure per meeting between 2008 and 2009. Just a year earlier, planners predicted 11% growth in meeting budgets and a 22.6% increase in spending on individual meetings.
- In the second half of 2008, organizations cancelled an average of 4.1 meetings, representing 8% of the total for that period. For 2009, organizations have already cancelled an average of 3.4 meetings, representing 7% of all scheduled activity, at an average value of US$200,000 per meeting.
- Although 61% of respondents reported that corporate social responsibility (CSR) was important to their organizations, specific CSR initiatives may be delayed in organizations that see them as non-essential in an uncertain economy.
- As funds become more scarce, meeting professionals expect a greater effort to anticipate Return on Investment before a meeting is booked, based on past per-formance, attendee satisfaction, adherence to budget, and the ability to negotiate “extras” like free transportation and complimentary meals. Competitive bids will be sought more frequently, while options such as open bars, gifts, formal dinners, and entertainment will face greater scrutiny.
- Suppliers in all regions expressed strong interest in CRM technology. But more than half in EMEA, 52% in Canada, and 46% in the United States said the available packages are either inadequate or unaffordable.
[ return to top ]
The Upside…
 Meeting and event professionals still see face-to-face meetings as the most effective tool for a variety of purposes that are central to their organizational missions: to build relationships and trust, engender a sense of community, conduct highly interactive programs, engage participants at an emotional level, and demonstrate new products that require physical use, from medical devices to sporting goods.
- Faced with a tough global market, the meeting and event industry in 2009 will sharpen its focus and streamline its activities to the necessities of economic life. Planners’ operational decisions will be driven overwhelmingly by cost, secondarily by practicalities like airlift for destinations, and customer service for hotels and meeting venues.
- The overall relationship between planners and suppliers is becoming a buyer’s market, where planners can expect to negotiate more generous concessions, incentives, rates, and other contract provisions. Planners and suppliers alike expect to build more flexibility into their contracts to account for an uncertain market.
- About 25% of meeting professionals around the world expect that a reduction in the number of available flights will reshape the way they plan and conduct meetings.
- Planners and suppliers are still in the market for technologies that will help them meet specific objectives related to attendee feedback, onsite Internet access and wireless networking, customer relationship management, audio-visual services, and buyer-seller relationships. Planners placed a premium on technologies that “provide better access to the Internet at meeting venues and hotels,” but 70% said current arrangements are inadequate or unaffordable.
- One in 10 FutureWatch 2009 respondents predicted a continuing trend toward greener, more environmentally friendly meetings, with specific features ranging from recycled name badges and biodegradable signage to reduced fuel consumption and paperless meetings.
- Respondents see virtual meetings as an important trend, and many of them predicted a shift to Web-based learning as a way to control meeting and travel costs. However, they are not entirely convinced that the enabling technologies are ready for prime time. Webcasting and virtual meeting technologies ranked lowest for accessibility and affordability among planners and meeting management professionals in EMEA and Canada, though US respondents were more optimistic.
[ return to top ]
MPI’s EventView 2009: North America Tracks Trends in Events Sector
Now in its seventh year, MPI’s EventView study – a collaboration between MPI, the Event Marketing Institute (EMI) and George P. Johnson (GPJ) – is the event and meetings industry’s longest-running, global report on event marketing trends. Between Dec. 2008 and Feb. 2009, more than 1,000 individuals in marketing management positions from North America, Europe and Asia Pacific were interviewed via telephone with the goal of bringing clarity to the value and role that events play in the marketing mix. Here are some highlights from this year’s report:
 29% of respondents say they will transition from event marketing to experience marketing in the next 12 months; 33% already transitioned
- 66% of respondents plan on implementing or have already implemented green initiatives within the event function; 44% are doing so as a result of a corporate responsibility mandate and report that green accounts for 13% of their event budget
- The majority of respondents rank the influence of procurement in marketing decisions as low with 17% of respondents indicating that the role of procurement/purchasing is increasing at their organizations
- 10% of the overall corporate budget is dedicated to marketing with 25% of the average marketing budget spent on event marketing
- 44% of respondents indicate that event marketing is taken under consideration along with other mediums and 32% characterize events as a vital component of the marketing plan; 11% say events are a lead tactic
- Event marketing (32%) and Web marketing (32%) and are the first marketing channels to benefit from an increase in the overall marketing budget; Events (53%) and print advertising (48%) are the channels first affected by a decrease in the marketing budget
- 53% choose event marketing as the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships followed by public relations 19%
- 64% of respondents state that they do engage in some form of post-event measurement with 43% of them measuring to justify expenditures
- Among North American respondents, companies that measure are over two times more likely to receive increases in their marketing budget than those that do not measure
- 26% of respondents choose event marketing as the marketing discipline that provides the greatest ROI, followed by Web marketing at 20%
[ return to top ]
The 2009 SMERF Meetings Journal Survey
What Our Readers Say…
SMERF Meetings Journal last surveyed its readers in 2007, 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, had changed in the past two years.
First, a couple of stats about who our readers are: The largest percentage plan association meetings, but only by a slight margin. The next-biggest group is involved with corporate meetings, followed closely by educational meeting planers. Religious, fraternal and social meeting planners comprise the smallest share, but there are no large disparities here – in other words, all parts of the SMERF acronym are well represented.
When asked, “How large is your largest event?” just over 47% say they deal with meetings of 200 people or less, with the next-largest group (23.8%) 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; this time around that figure dropped to slightly less than 50%. By contrast, the share of respondents with between 5 and 10 years of experience grew from 25% to 28.5% between 2007 and 2009, signaling a possible shift toward planners with shorter tenure.
Other highlights from this year’s survey:
- 62% say their organization has a Meeting Planning department
- 52.3 % have a staff to help them in their planning efforts
- Nearly two-thirds spend 60% or more of their time on meeting planning activities
- The largest share of respondents (38%) plan 10-30 meeting per year. In 2007, the largest group (43%) said they planned less than 10 meeting per year.
- Nearly half of respondents (47.6%) expect their budgets to remain the same.
[ return to top ]
|
|
|
|
|
