Corporate Meetings:
Opportunities & Future Growth Prospects

Questions and Answers arising from the IMEX/JMIC Webinar

Q: how can planners, especially corporate planners, involve their organizations more so their meeting and event spend is known by the politicians in their destination. Answer – Suggest using ROI (Return on Investment) and economic impact tools to document the financial contribution of meetings and events, issue press releases and send to politicians...

Q: Do you think it would be a good idea for hotels and destination organizations to use their advertising dollars (withdrawing funds from TV news or newspapers) as retaliation for poor journalistic standards and sensational reporting that has damaged the industry? Answer: Cutting back on marketing and advertising expenses is NOT recommended – Negative retaliation is counterproductive.

Q: further comment on the separation of roles between internal event resources vs. external agencies - With the current focus on spend, the obvious question organisation's are asking is 'what value do you bring'.  In my view this is not only focused on events but on all areas of any organisation.  For me, the key is to define your role as an internal events manager and what that means for your organisation.  If you view yourself as an 'internal agency' then why are you better value the an external agency?  Regardless, I do think there is a role and a need for internal resource and external agencies to work together to provide the most effective solution for your organisation.

Q: Can you comment on how we engage sponsors to support events in the current financial climate – Suggest talking with sponsors about providing soft cost added value products and services in additional to just hard dollar/euro contributions.

Q: Do you feel that a high quality, luxurious city with exclusive venues, beaches, and international connections (but not so easy than a capital city) put us out of the competition at this stage? Competition will be harder in relation to pure Business related meetings, but incentive travel will remain viable for these kinds of destinations and will not disappear.

Q: One of an important success factor for an IT conference is it to have global management presence for one-on-ones, to transfer the company strategy and big picture and just for customer, partner loyalty and awareness:  How do you make sure that you have executive availability on all the local events if you are not doing a pan-European event anymore? Don´t you think it will lose a bit of its image and quality?   It’s true that the risk is there. We are trying to secure a good balance between Global/Regional and local Executive support/attendance at our local events too. We still have the opportunity of inviting our customers to SAPPHIRE Orlando, if they are really interested in getting the overall Global picture. On top we are still putting lot of care in protecting our brand and ensuring that we maintain the same level of Customer Experience (quality) in all events we deliver, independently if they are local, Regional or Global.

Q: US companies are being careful about where they take their meetings, and trying to keep cost  and trips as low as possible. How is the situation in other countries? Don't think this is any different in the UK.  Perception is a massive issue, global air travel is being questioned, as well as the general need for some meetings to take place.

Q: What are some ways that suppliers can add value to meetings above and beyond offering the most competitive prices? Offer a variety of added value products and services – provide access to local intellectual capital such as local politicians, media leader, scientists, educators, speakers, hotels and centres can offer free of lower cost internet access, free of discounted access to gym/spa, reduce fees for low cost/high impact services are highly desirable.

Q: What would you suggest to top tier destinations that are constantly struggling against adverse perception? Shouldn’t a lower budget be the winning answer to adverse perception? That is not always the case. It is not just about the lower cost – perception is sometimes surpasses economic issues, especially for high profile meetings and events; critical to understand client’s potential issues (media, shareholder, stakeholders) and ensure your products and service will compliment, no conflict with those needs.

Q:to help integrate events in to the overall marketing strategy do you think it matters where the event team is on the org chart? Should it be corporate, regional, product or industry based?   It doesn’t really matters where the Events team is sitting within the Company Org chart. It can be either in Corporate, Regional, Business Unit, etc, depending on the overall Company structure. What is key is that the Events team is fully aligned with the Marketing organization and has clear visibility on the overall Marketing strategy, to be aligned versus common business objectives.

Q: US companies are being careful about where they take their meetings, and trying to keep cost and trips as low as possible. How is the situation in other countries?  The EMEA Region is seeing the trend of more meetings staying local ; this brings the message closer to the transaction and in local language, and expanding beyond just having large Regional events.

GENERAL: There is also a complete set of industry advocacy materials and strategic action suggestions available on the JMIC web site www.themeetingsindustry.org  The emphasis is on arguments re: meetings as a key component of global economic development but strategies are focused on the level of the local community.

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About the Speakers

MEETINGS: Review hosted a live webcast following the IMEX-JMIC webinar from their TV studios in London. Simon Hughes, Director of Live Events - Central Office of Information (COI), UK Government; Adrian Hardy - Head of Scheduling for UK Marketing, BT plc, and David Hornby – Commercial Director of Visit London & Vice President of SITE discussed and reviewed the IMEX-JMIC webinar. Watch them online at http://meetingsreview.com/jmic