Meetings in a virtual world
Top trends for event planners to watch
By Corbin Ball
Shift happens. Technology, terrorism, travel cutback and belt-tightening economic trends are creating an extraordinary tsunami of transformation for the meetings industry. Here are some of the key long-term trends to watch.
Face-to-face meetings will not be replaced by virtual meetings
Meetings are the primary way that adults are educated, and the need for updates, training and continuing education has never been stronger. As a nation of knowledge workers, we are spending more time behind computer monitors.
Two effects of these changes are being seen: The isolation factor - the more we are behind a screen, the more we will desire human contact; and increased contacts - the internet is expanding our circle of contacts (and people we would like to meet) throughout the world.
Additionally, the interaction found in face-to-face meetings cannot easily be replaced by virtual meeting options. Brainstorming, networking, relationship building cannot be as easily done over the web. Or in other words, there is no such thing as a virtual beer!
Virtual meetings will grow
Virtual meetings (web collaboration, web conferencing, web casting, and video conferencing) will increasingly find their way into corporate American and associations as alternative information distribution systems. In a similar way that videotapes and DVDs have not replaced the movie industry, but instead, all have grown along strong parallel distribution paths, so will virtual meetings.
Hotel profitability will be flat for sometime to come
Hoteliers are experiencing a "perfect wave" of events that have driven occupancies to a record 30-year low. On the plus side, hoteliers are using technology to improve yield management and have been able to remain profitable despite these record low occupancies.
Basic buying methods have shifted. The combination of over-supply and web-based purchasing trends will continue to flatten hotel prices for the next several years.
A related headache for planners is that sleeping room pick-up for groups is being reduced due to the web. Attendees are finding beds across the street at "no-name" hotels reducing the group pick-up, the revenue for the group hotel, and the meeting planners' negotiation leverage with them.
Voluntary standards will increase efficiency
Meeting planners' communication of key meeting information with hoteliers and other suppliers is largely analog (paper-based). For example, a meeting planner may e-mail meeting specifications to a hotel but in order to process, it must be printed out and re-entered into the hotel's system.
Meetings management and marketing will increasingly be web-based
Nearly 75 percent of meeting planners use the web for online registration. However, most have only done so within the past five years. Although high satisfaction levels are reported, most planners are not using it to even 10 percent of its full potential.
Online registration will be seen as far more than a convenience for attendees. It will be used as communication automation, audience profiling, and a one-to-one marketing tool.
Speaker selection will migrate to the web
Meeting planners use the web as their number one resource for researching information about meeting facilities. Web resources for site selection are far more complete than any paper guide ever written. Meeting planners will increasingly turn to the web to source other suppliers - especially speakers.
Corbin Ball, is an international speaker, consultant and writer.
WBJ Web Partners
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