Let’s Get Together: Meeting News to Go
By the numbers. The 2006 Meetings Market Report, conducted by Meetings & Conventions Magazine, reported approximately 1.25 million meetings were held in 2005, a 25% increase from 2004, according to the Convention Industry Council Economic Impact Study. In 2005, the average annual corporate expenditure on meetings was $536,000. Associations spent an average of $465,000 on their conventions and $137,000 on other association meetings. What were the most popular destinations for corporate and association meeting planners? California was the top state, while Chicago was the favored city.
Oh, they’re just showboating. Everyone who has ever traveled to a conference knows the hassle of finding a place to call your home away from home. The staff of the Web site Comic Book Resources set sail to cover this week’s Comic-Con International in San Diego by renting a 42′ yacht to serve as their HQ during the show. The boat will be moored behind the convention center during the show, and serve as the backdrop for video interviews and other coverage of the pop culture event.
Meet and Green-t Considering all the wasted paper and materials generated by many conference, it was inspiring to hear about last month’s BlogPhiladelphia event, an “unconference” that went out of its way to be as “green” as possible. The gathering of over 200 bloggers, consumer-generated media gurus and novices did the obvious, like provide recycling bins around the main ballroom. But it also went to extra steps, like collecting food waste to compost, offering participants tap water and glasses instead of bottles, using reusable china and cloth napkins, using materials left over from other events for giveaway bags made of recycled paper, and loading press materials on reusable USB jump drives, instead of giving out paper press kits. The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp., which co-sponsored the event, is no stranger to social media. The GPTMC offers free podcast tours of the city (SoundAboutPhilly.com), a citizen journalist blog with social bookmarking links (uwishunu.com), a Web-TV series (Cheap Dates), a social networking Web page (myspace.com/uwishunu), interactive Google maps with text technology (gophila.com/byobmap) and other tools such as RSS feeds and customizable itineraries on gophila.com.
A place to lay your hat. Finding a room when traveling to a conference may get a bit easier in the next few years. The U.S. hotel industry is in the midst of a relative slowdown expected to last at least until the end of 2008, according to a report by industry tracker Smith Travel Research. The main problem for hotels is that supply growth is increasing while demand growth is waning. In 2005, supply inched ahead only 0.1 percent, while demand surged by 3 percent. The gap narrowed last year, with 0.6 percent supply increase and 1.1 percent demand gain. Now, through the first five months of 2007, demand growth (0.5 percent) has fallen below supply growth (1.2 percent).
