State of the Meetings and Events Industry
I am happy to report that there are two dynamic trends occurring in 2007 that is favorable to the meetings and events industry.
1) According to the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, which was held recently, most hoteliers are very bullish on 2007 and 2008 regarding the building of more hotel and resort properties across the USA and the world. This group that met at the Summit are made up of hotel/resort owners, management companies, investors, investment bankers, etc. For example, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide signed deals to expand their hotel chain by 150 units last year, which is a record for that company.
What this means is that there is more properties and more flexibility for corporate clients to locate their next conference or special event.
2) The second remarkable trend is the explosion of more booked meetings for 2007. Corporate Meetings Magazine (Meetings Net .com) states that corporate planners expect the number of meetings they hold to grow by 7 percent in 2007. The amount of dollars spend on each meeting is to grow by 4 percent. This was taken from a poll of meeting planners for last quarter 2006.
Of these people polled, 71 percent of corporate planners organize meetings for offices in more than one country, and the globalization of the industry will continue to increase at a rapid pace, with a third of participants expecting their organization to be doing business in another country by the end of the year.
So there is much movement in the frequency and scope of meetings and conferences, which is a good thing for all of us in the industry.
This issue of News Articles written by Bruce K .Inouye of www.P2 Events.com
(Please contact this author for permission to reprint in any other publication.)