How will your overall 2014 meetings budget compare to 2013? Decrease significantly 4.7% Decrease slightly 28.0% No change 35.3% Increase slightly 29.3% Increase significantly 2.7% Will your organization be implementing any cost-cutting measures for 2014? Reducing the F&B budget 55.9% Offering fewer optional activities 41.5% Booking lower tier hotels 35.6% Avoiding resort/beach destinations 28.8% Eliminating all optional activities 17.8% If your organization is cancelling a meeting in 2013, how do you hope to make up for this loss of engagement and interaction? Taking no action 38.0% Replacing the meeting with a virtual event 32.4% Increasing the level of internal communication (through emails, company intranet, etc.) 30.6% Combining the meeting with another live event 19.4% Replacing the meeting with an on-site meeting 18.5% How important will any of the following be to the execution of your meetings in 2014? (on a scale of 1 to 4) Online RFP tools 2.13 Mobile apps 2.09 Site selection companies 1.73 Third party planning companies 1.70
The U.S. economy may be getting more stable, but
according to Successful Meetings' "2014 Meetings Budget
Forecast," the big trend next year will be the tightening of
belts.
When we asked 153 corporate executives and planners, "What do
you think the greatest challenge to your organization's ability
to execute effective meetings will be in 2014?" three words
popped up repeatedly: cost, budget, and economy. Combined,
those three words were in at least three quarters of the
responses.
The "ability to effectively plan and get the same effect with
lower budgets and higher costs," is the greatest challenge that
Theresa Zukoski faces in her role as administrative
assistant/trade show manager for Dorfman Pacific, a hat and
handbag wholesaler. Among the cost-cutting measures she expects
to implement are booking lower-tier hotels, reducing the food
and beverage (F&B) budget, and offering fewer optional
activities for attendees.
Of course, more than a few of the executives and planners who
responded specified cost increases by suppliers - in areas such
as F&B and airfare - as the reason for their budgetary
challenges.
Carol Reisling, a meeting planner for the American Bar
Association, said her greatest challenge will be "working with
limited budgets yet still providing creative F&B options
and state-of-the-art technology for our members."
The survey also showed that the number of respondents expecting
slight budget increases (29.3 percent) was almost evenly
matched with those who expected decreases (28 percent). About
one-third (35.3 percent) expect flat budgets. And while those
who expect big budget cuts (4.7 percent) outnumbered those
predicting big increases (2.7 percent), both numbers were
small.
Some of those cuts will result in fewer meetings being held in
2014. The biggest loser was incentives, with 21.6 percent of
respondents predicting fewer compared with 9.5 percent planning
more. A close second was consumer/marketing events, with 19.2
percent expecting fewer and 9.6 percent anticipating more.
There will be a higher priority placed on training meetings
according to our respondents, with 23.8 percent saying they
will hold more of these meetings and 15.2 percent saying they
will hold fewer. Sales meetings are slightly positive, with 14
percent planning on having more, and 12.7 holding fewer.
But the big change was in virtual and hybrid meetings. Fully
45.3 percent expect more virtual meetings, compared with just
2.7 percent expecting fewer; for hybrid meetings, the numbers
were 25 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.