The numbers are in, and they’re not pretty. But that’s probably not news to you.
While there’s hope the new administration in Washington, D.C., will succeed in resuscitating the economy, there are a lot of industries and economic recovery tools—the credit market, to name one rather large elephant in the room—that are seemingly on life support.
In December, PKF Hospitality Research forecasted a 7.8 percent decline in U.S. hotel RevPAR (revenue per available room) in 2009, with no quarterly increase in this key hospitality industry statistic until the second quarter of 2010. PKF also predicts a 2.5 percent fall-off in demand coupled with a 2.9 percent increase in supply during the same time period. One major international bank even predicts a 10 percent drop in U.S. RevPAR growth next year.
What does this mean to the average meeting planner? It’s a buyer’s market, of course, but in this instance the buyers don’t have any cash. You don’t need an MBA from Harvard to extrapolate from there.
To take the pulse on Main Street, we conduct a comprehensive Meetings Market Trends Survey every year, and this year we decided to make it even bigger.
Besides the mountain of data we collected from the more than 600 respondents, we’ve included an analysis from American Express Business Travel, targeted career advice from our Career Forum columnist, Sheryl Sookman Schelter, and observations from the heads of the top meetings industry associations.
Let’s hope by the time you read this it’s all irrelevant, but I wouldn’t bet what’s left of your IRA on it.
