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Meeting changes head on the experts pinpoint the trends for 2009
March/April, 2009
By Scott Anderson
Every year the meetings and events industry must adapt to changes. Some years there is a monumental shift in the way in which the players are forced to respond, while in other years there are just minor alterations. But big or small, the changes still exist and those that adapt quickly are rewarded, while those that are slow to react risk being left behind.
This year is no different. The significant downturn in the economy has forced the companies, planners and the participants to come up with new ways to participate while watching the bottom line.
Corporate Meetings and Events magazine polled some of the industry’s leaders to see what the trends will be for 2009 and how the industry is expected to fare during these unprecedented times.
Rod Cameron, Executive Director, Convention Centres of Canada
The next few years are going to be challenging ones for Canada’s meetings industry, and in particular, its convention centres, given that meetings, conventions and exhibitions will be responding to the same kinds of pressures faced by the economy as a whole. But as with any situation, there will also be new opportunities for those who respond to the challenges and adapt to new conditions.
Overall, business will be down, as the kinds of events centres host tend to track the broader economy, but not all market segments will react the same way. The initial impacts will tend to come from corporate clients, who generally operate on shorter time frames and have already responded to changing conditions and new budget constraints.
Association conventions are likely to be more stable as their meeting activities are typically a core function and revenue source, and in any event, they tend to operate on a longer planning cycle. However, even when events continue to take place, there will inevitably be impacts from reduced attendance and budgets.
But these impacts need to be balanced against some of the opportunities which will arise -- opportunities that will result in a stronger industry once the current crisis has passed into history -- and there are a number of these.
First, there will be an unprecedented need to reconnect with clients, not just to manage changes in programs and budgets but also to address the common need for building attendance and enhancing the value of the meeting for delegates. This is clearly an area where both parties either win or lose depending on the outcome and one where better long-term relationships can be built.
Secondly, current conditions will encourage centres to diversify markets and revenue sources, and to reduce their dependency on any one business source. In particular, the U.S. market has been an increasingly difficult one in recent years as a result of factors ranging from currency exchange shifts to U.S. passport issues and growing competition from U.S. facilities.
By revisiting local business and exploring new opportunities on the broader international scene, centres will be putting themselves in a much better position to weather future downturns.
Finally, this crisis will give the meetings industry as a whole the best opportunity to demonstrate its critical position in the overall economy. With all eyes looking for anything that promises economic stimulation, the role our industry plays in generating direct economic benefits based on delegate spending will get a new focus.
But even more important will be the case we can make as to how we also create new business and investment opportunities, advance education and professional development, raise destination profile and facilitate new research and academic activities, particularly in a time when all these are critical to getting the economy back on track.
Our challenge as an industry is not just to rebuild revenues. It is also to restructure where required, and to make sure we emerge in a stronger position for the future. Creating a better appreciation for what we do and the benefits we generate for the community as a whole will be a key part of this, and an opportunity we can’t miss.
Phil Ecclestone, Vice-President, Golden Planners Inc.
The Event Managers and company management at GPI have noticed some changes to the business of third party professional event planning and our relationships with clients and their event programs.
In no specific order, the key ones are:
Shorter lead times: Clients and event organizers are waiting longer and making decisions closer to the time that they want to hold their event in order to start the planning process.
We believe this is caused by a number of factors, primarily budgetary (can they afford to hold the event along with the potential costs associated with not reaching targets?) and scarcity of resources on their end which requires them to tackle other projects first as they have an immediate priority (possibly because of less human resources available for more responsibilities). I would also suggest that there may be some consideration as to whether their intended participants can afford to attend which impacts back on their fiscal concerns.
Diminished attendance: Events will still happen but fewer people will attend compared with previous years. This will be as a result of corporate decisions limiting the number of staff that can attend one particular event or limits on the overall professional development spend.
As a response, watch out for more bundled packages with discounts based on the number of attendees from a given organization.
Future projects will go on hold: In previous economic difficulties we found that it was not so much this year's project that was cancelled, but the one two or three years down the road to avoid liability by signing contracts and later cancelling. Because of the contractual obligations, it is often the case that cancellation costs cannot be justified for any return, so the project already under way will continue.
More hotel deals: There will be more "deals" from hotels, but they will hold hard to existing contracts. In the third party sector of the business, this will mean that we will have to spend time negotiating between clients who have existing contracts and see "deals" for lower rates offered at the time of their event by hotels that are trying to fill space and those hotels/venues. At the same time, attrition will be strictly adhered to, unless it would impact on future business in the near term.
More renovations: There will be more renovations at properties that have cash reserves as they see now as the time to undertake the renovation without as much impact on lost business.
Greater scrutiny on event costs: Diminished budgets will mean additional questioning about good deals. The cost of food and beverage in hotels will become an issue and a compromise will have to be found concerning the use of space and the costs of F&B which are much higher at hotels and convention centres than at other venues. This will become more of an issue with government clients who have to adhere to treasury board guidelines which limit the amount that can be spent per person on an individual meal that is considerably lower than banquet pricing at most properties. This austerity might move to the travel and accommodation policies of corporations, having a huge impact on the industry.
Healthy menu choices: Clients and participants are looking more and more for food choices that are part of a healthy lifestyle (not just because of dietary restrictions). Some venues have some movement in this area, but not enough as it is hard to justify the costs associated with the heart smart menu when it doesn't necessarily have the luxurious flavor that comes with the fat.
Tom Price, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at White Oaks Conference Resort
As is the case with most sectors of our economy, technology is redefining how we do business and the meeting and conference sector is no exception.
However, it appears that this evolution is being driven more by the desire of suppliers to generate revenue, than by the needs of either meeting planners or conference attendees.
The planning process has always involved a very diverse set of activities. The process is made even more complex by the necessity to collaborate and problem solve with a broad range of individuals, both within the planning organization and with suppliers of goods and services.
This being said, historically the “low tech” approach has worked very well, and although we can all tell stories about a “ballroom full of people being soaked because the sprinklers went off” or “being sick from an out break of E. coli”, for the most part the process has generated amazing results.
The “high tech” approach has not yet taken off as it relates to redefining the meeting planning process. Clearly, advances on the web such as search tools like “Google”, and collaboration tools like “facebook” or “linkedin” play their part. Electronic request for proposal tools like “Meetingseasy” and virtual meeting tools like “gotomeeting” are a step in the right direction.
The growing number of applications available through download sites, like Apple’s “app store” provide some solutions, but they typically do not integrate easily with the existing tools available to planners. Some planners have turned to large and expensive enterprise meeting planning systems, which are less than flexible and fairly old school in their design.
Overall very few companies or organizations are trying to “connect the dots” between the old school and new school. This is to say that suppliers are all racing to build tools that are specific to certain areas of the meeting planning process, without standing back and asking “how does my new tool connect into the existing planning process or to other web tools that already exist?”
Research has already been undertaken to define the scope of opportunity set to explode in the area of the on-line group and meetings market. Two studies of note would be “Groups and Meetings: Market Opportunity Redefined by PhoCusWright Inc and Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association’s (HEDNA) white paper written by the Solutionz group. Defining the scope and opportunity is the first step in attracting investment that could support an overall coordinated effort.
Two other sources of information on the topic are Corbin Ball at http://www.corbinball.com and James Spellos at http://meeting-u.com. Both provide a host of related information and are the best in the industry at “connecting the dots” from the old school to the new school of meeting planning.
The challenge might be to breakdown the meeting planning process into stages and to organize the available web tools according to what the planner is trying to accomplish at each stage. The technology gap is not likely to be filled by any one supplier, organization or industry association, but rather by a cooperative effort put forth by a cross-section of the industry.
Filed under: Features
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