It’s no small feat to plan association meetings these days. As if it weren’t tough enough to be up against a fat and sassy hotel market with a short memory, there’s increasing pressure to deliver punched-up marketing and educational content that is compelling enough to draw time-challenged members to the meeting.
At least that’s the message that came through in a recent survey conducted by Meetings Media, publisher of Meetings West, of nearly 300 association meeting planners in the U.S. and Canada.
The survey sought to get a handle on just how planners are dealing with the hotel seller’s market and other pressures stemming from today’s no-nonsense business climate.
Building Attendance
While nearly half of the survey respondents (44.9 percent) said attendance at their meetings has gone up over the past two years, 33.4 percent said attendance was flat and 21.6 percent said attendance had declined.
Comments from planners with increased attendance most often credited the upswing to an improved economy, popular meeting locations, better marketing efforts, and strong educational programs addressing topics of importance to attendees.
Those with declining attendance most often blamed the increasing costs of attending meetings and a diminishing amount of time that potential attendees can spend away from the office.
When it comes to building attendance, the highest number of planners (47.4 percent) cited e-mail as the most effective means of promoting the meeting. Direct mail (33.9 percent) came in second, while telemarketing (2.5 percent) placed a distant third.
Among planners who credit rising attendance to more increased use of e-mail promotion is Claire Rusk, CMP, director of conference planning and strategy for the Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA) in Alexandria, Va.
“Our attendance has really shot up recently and it’s because we’ve upped our marketing efforts in the form of e-mail blasts,” she says. “We had assumed that our people were tied to print media. We found out they’re not.”
While ATCA used to primarily promote its annual convention with a print brochure, it now uses e-mail messages that include both industry news and information about the meeting.
Along with the switch to electronic marketing, Rusk also credits rising attendance to the fact that the meetings address the issues surrounding the air traffic control industry these days.
“Some people come to the convention every year automatically, but now some want to come because of the speakers we’ve lined up,” she says. “It helps that there are hot topics facing our industry.”
At the Chicago Dental Society, Director of Scientific Programs Al Klesynski also credits increased marketing efforts with building attendance. However, the society primarily relies on an old media method—print ads in dental journals.
“For years, we were holding steady at about 30,000 attendees at our annual convention, but now we’re up to 34,000,” he says. “We’ve started to do a lot of marketing and we’re really seeing the results. Promotion does make a difference.”
In some cases, associations are marketing the meeting as a way that members can survive in a tough business climate. Such is the case with the Society of American Florists (SAF), where Laura Weaver, director of meetings and conventions for the Alexandria, Va.-based organization, says members are suffering from increased competition from big-box stores and online companies.
“Economic forces in our industry are making it harder for people to attend meetings, so our tactic is to promote the convention as a way they can learn new business and marketing skills,” she says. “We emphasize the direct benefit of attending the meeting.”
Attendance Challenges
For some associations, however, increased marketing cannot overcome other factors that put a damper on attendance.
At the National Association of Executive Secretaries and Administrative Assistants (NAESAA) in Falls Church, Va., Director Ruth Ludeman says attendance at annual conventions is flat from year to year, despite the organization’s attempts to make it grow.
“A lot of companies have cut back on staff and expenses, so people cannot get away from the office as much as they used to,” she says. “And companies are less willing to pay for people to attend.”
In some cases, the nation’s improved economic climate has not had the beneficial impact on attendance that one would expect. At the Engineering & Utility Contractors Association based in San Ramon, Calif., Event Planner Karen Olivar says that many members are too busy working to attend meetings.
“Our attendance has slipped a bit,” she says. “It’s not because people can’t afford to come to the meeting, but because they have less time. The economy is doing so well that there is more business to attend to. Time has become crucial.”
The rising costs of attending meetings is being felt by some organizations, including the National Sheriff’s Association (NSA), based in Alexandria, Va.
Soaring fuel costs, which are translating to higher airfares, are a concern to Ross Mirmelstein, director of meetings, who says higher than expected air transportation costs is likely to hurt attendance at NSA’s upcoming convention in Salt Lake City.
“When I started budgeting, I figured an average cost of $400 per ticket,” he says. “Now it’s hard to find anything for $500.”
A Lot of Learning
When asked if they are devoting more time and resources to educational sessions at meetings than they were two years ago, a whopping 69.9 percent of the planners surveyed answered in the affirmative.
When commenting on the reasons why, many planners said that attendees increasingly need strong continuing education and/or professional development content in order to justify their presence at meetings, whether the justification is to themselves or an employer. Increases and changes in continuing education requirements and industry regulations are also driving the trend.
“You must have content that is relevant and that speaks to the attendees,” says Glen Ramsborg, senior director of education for PCMA in Chicago. “How will this session benefit me when I get back to the office on Monday morning?”
Ramsborg notes that a growing number of companies expect some return on investment when employees take time off from work to attend conventions.
“If you’re at the meeting on the boss’s ticket, how will it benefit the organization and make you better at your job?” he says. “Another factor is that it’s become increasingly difficult for many people to get out of their offices and, when they do, they return to an avalanche of e-mail. So the meeting really has to be worth your time.”
Colleen Goodin, meeting planner for the San Francisco-based National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), is among planners who say educational content has become a bigger priority over the past two years.
“Our attorney members are required by their states to get so many credits in continuing legal education,” she says. “Time is very precious to them and they want a lot of bang for their buck. So we focus on getting them the best sessions they can.”
At PCMA meetings, a major focus is to educate planners on how best to use education at their own meetings. According to Ramsborg, the trend is to get away from the standard speaker with a PowerPoint presentation and create sessions that are more experiential and interactive.
“We’ve done an Improv to Improve session in a theater setting that’s all about audience participation,” he says. “At our next convention in Seattle we’ll be going out to the Olympic Sculpture Park to illustrate how meetings can be environmentally sustainable. We’re taking content and putting it in the context of the venue.”
At CDC annual conventions, where over 200 educational sessions are presented over four days, Kleksynski says the dental delegates like things to be as interactive as possible.
“Our members want the latest information on technology, and the hands-on programs are definitely the most popular,” he says. “They attendees want to be able to use the new equipment and materials.”
Ramsborg adds that the biggest challenge that association planners face with education is in devising programs that appeal to a variety of age groups.
“You’ve got three generations at one meeting and the challenge is to reach all three,” he says. “You’ve got the guy who’s grown up with videogames and the guy in his 50s to whom technology is not second nature. How do you use technology to appeal to the younger members without alienating the older ones?”
Ramsborg advises planners to get as much feedback from attendees as they can.
“Feedback is essential and we seek it over and over,” he says. “The most important part of any education endeavor is assessment of what people want. You can create the perfect program, but if it doesn’t meet the needs of your members, no one will come.”
Shed a Tier?
Not surprisingly, escalating hotel room rates, especially in first-tier cities, have left their mark on where and when association meetings are held.
While slightly less than a third (31.4 percent) of the planners said the hotel seller’s market has had no impact on where and when they hold meetings, 30.3 percent said it has affected where they hold meetings and another 35.5 percent said it has affected both where and when their meetings are held.
Almost 40 percent of the planners surveyed indicated that they are holding more meetings in second- and third-tier cities than they did two years ago.
“We’re looking more at second-tier cities and we will continue to do so as long as the seller’s market is in force,” says NSA’s Mirmelstein. “The hotel rates are really going through the roof and the hotels are not taking into account that it’s a pendulum swing. When the pendulum swings in our favor, they come begging for business.”
Goodin at NELA has similar frustrations, citing high hotel rates as the key reason that attendance at her meetings has dropped a bit.
“We just keep asking for better rates, but nothing seems to make a difference,” she says. “We use the same few chains and always bring up how much we use their hotels in other locations. All we get is a ‘that’s nice.’”
While NAESAA’s Ludeman is using more second-tier cities these days, she says they are not always more affordable.
“Second-tier cities are now imposing some of the same demands as first-tier cities, especially in regards to attrition on room blocks and food and beverage minimums,” she says. “They used to be more lenient, but now they have jumped on the bandwagon.”
She adds that sometimes a larger city can be less expensive than a smaller one because of the air accessibility factor.
“We recently compared St. Louis and Branson (Mo.), and St. Louis won because they are an air hub and it’s much cheaper to fly there,” she says.
Destination Priorities
What is most important to association planners when selecting a destination?
Hotel rates were ranked as the No. 1 consideration by planners in the survey, with 80.4 percent citing them as “very important.” Hotel quality was right behind in the “very important” category with 79.9 percent, followed by amount of meeting space at 75.1 percent, air accessibility at 61.5 percent and car accessibility at 50.2 percent.
Beyond accessibility and the quality and cost of hotels and meeting facilities, planners also gave some weight to a destination’s overall visitor appeal and to such convenience factors as proximity of hotels to the convention center.
For Mirmelstein, the convenience of hotels to the convention center ranks just behind hotel and convention center costs.
“If we have two cities that are equal except that one requires people to be bussed to the center, we will go with the one that doesn’t require it,” he says. “People do not like to be bussed.”
Ludeman looks for destinations that would be places her secretary attendees would also consider for a short vacation.
“It really needs to be a place where people would want to come on their own,” she says. “The meeting is not just about the networking and the workshops, it’s a chance to get some rejuvenation.”
