State of the Industry Report by Successful Meetings to be out soon

The American magazine Successful Meetings put the finishing touches on its 2005 State of the Industry (SOI) Report. Based on responses from more than 1,500 corporate, association, and independent planners, SOI examines in detail the trends taking place across the meetings industry.

Some reported trends are:

• 18.4 percent of planners earn between $40,000 and $49,999, the most common range. And regardless of the salary range they fall into, 41.2 percent of all respondents feel that their pay is low relative to their duties.

• 35 percent of planners do not outsource any component of their meetings. Of the 65 percent who do outsource some components, the most common were housing registration, air travel, security, and ground transportation. The tasks least commonly outsourced are site selection, expense management, contract negotiation, and logistics management.

• Although several lodging research organizations estimate an average sleeping-room rate increase of between four and seven percent for 2005, fully 66 percent of planners feel that sleeping rooms will be equally or more negotiable in 2005 than in 2004.

• When determining return on investment for meetings, 67 percent of planners say they use written surveys to determine effectiveness of training sessions. And while this is still the most frequently used means of determining ROI, it is 10 percent less common than it was two years ago, while various other means have gained in popularity.

• 21 percent of planners had to cancel at least one meeting in 2004, down from 33 percent of planners two years ago. And 28 percent of planners had a meeting that did not meet its room-block obligations in 2004, down from 37 percent two years ago. What’s more, only 46 percent paid any attrition fees, down from 54 percent two years ago.