The disastrous Sept. 11 attacks on Manhattan and Washington, D.C, have led to an immediate spate of meeting cancellations, with scores of companies allowing employees and attendees to avoid travel in the aftermath of the assaults. But longer-term prospects for the corporate meeting industry are less certain, and perhaps less dire, as corporations plan to allow current events to evolve before committing to future cancellations.
Given the tumultuous aftershocks of the attacks throughout the travel industry, many sources noted the tragedy is still too recent to have developed any comprehensive corporate policy regarding future meetings. But given that many corporations already had scuttled what they believed were nonessential meetings earlier in the year due to the dragging economy, many remaining scheduled events serve critical sales and business needs.
At this extremely early point in the crisis, with the landscape still likely to change, corporations are allowing their employees much latitude in determining their travel plans.
Short-Term Cancellations
"We have canceled all of our meetings this week and next week," said Gilda Caputo, director of travel and meeting management services at PricewaterhouseCoopers of Florham Park, N.J. "We are looking at October and November and assuming we'll go ahead, but it will be on a case-by-case basis. The firm has been wonderful; if you don't want to fly, you don't have to fly."
Caputo said that any plans made now for future meetings can't be considered ironclad because of the effects of possible military action on domestic travel.
Several hotels scheduled to host future PwC meetings have contacted Caputo to get a sense of her plans, she said. "They've been wonderful," she said. "We cancel if we need to cancel and nobody's charged. These are major programs we're talking about here."
One consideration PwC has is the large number of regional offices currently scheduled to hold regional meetings, Caputo said. These are more likely to go on as planned, she said, as modes of transportation other than air travel can be easily booked if attendees aren't comfortable in the air.
"There's no push from anybody," Caputo said.
"The M.O. we're taking now is that we're doing our work, and if we can do it from our home base, wherever that is, then let's do that," said Tom Smith, director of meetings and events at Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Health Net. "We're using caution when we travel now, and we're looking to determine whether the meeting is necessary before we do so. We're looking at whether we can use teleconferencing, for example."
Trimming Even More Meetings
Like many corporations, Health Net already had cut a good deal of its group and meeting travel before Sept. 11 (Meetings Today, April 16), due to ongoing economic concerns. Still, Smith said, more meetings and transient travel likely will be trimmed in the immediate future, though no edict as such yet has been issued by the healthcare company's senior management.
Several Health Net internal meeting sponsors, particularly those based on the East Coast, have called Smith to solicit his advice as to whether to hold scheduled events.
"My recommendation was to keep them," Smith said. "It's important to do our jobs and not let the bad elements change the way we do things, but all the while keeping the safety of our attendees in mind. I've probably received a dozen calls from the East to inquire about this."
Meeting management companies are not yet reporting an overwhelming trend regarding future meetings.
"Our clients are handling things on a case-by-case basis, because every situation is different," said Debbie Rohlman, corporate vice president of group services for St. Louis-based Maritz Travel Co.
"It depends on the cost, the destination and the reasons for travel," Rohlman added. "Product launches, for example, are still going on because there are still new products to show to salespeople, and this is as critical time as any to do that."
Some of Maritz's meeting and group travel clients, though, have decided against staging events for the time being. "Some are not doing it," Rohlman said. "Some are asking about alternatives to travel. International meetings are not going forward for the immediate term and there's questions about holding them in the near future, but we're not yet seeing longer-term implications. It's so recent that companies are still taking stock of their situations."
Rohlman has heard from several of her suppliers, in many categories, from hotels to destination management companies. She praised suppliers for, in many cases, waiving cancellation fees, noting that "no one is taking advantage of any type of contract." At the same time, however, she said there was some confusion among planners over the hotels' decision to waive cancellation fees.
"They all set their own dates," she said. "And the next sentence is that anything that is outside that date is handled by the hotels on a case-by-case basis."
Hilton, for example, is waiving cancellation fees through Oct. 31, while Marriott will do so through Sept. 26—Sept. 30 at its Manhattan properties—and Hyatt will do so through mid-October.
Dallas-based Meeting Professionals International has posted current cancellation policies for most major hotel chains and airlines, as well as legal considerations for meeting cancellations under contractual "acts of God and war" provisions on its Web site (www.mpiweb.org). While MPI president and CEO Ed Griffin said there will be a short-term decrease in hotel occupancy and air travel, he does not believe the reason is a new fear of flying.
"I don't think there is a fear factor about getting people in one place, nor do I think the feeling that no one wants to fly is pervasive," Griffin said. "That's good, because that attitude would have long-term ramifications. There is all the reason in the world to hold meetings and conferences and to encourage members to feel comfortable and safe."
That said, the industry has changed, at least for now, and Griffin counseled that buyers and attendees need to prepare.
"The tight security and major delays at airports are both a problem and a blessing," he said. "And we do know there's a major drop in hotel occupancy rates at just about every hotel, but that's in no small part because people couldn't get to them. Hopefully, they can resume normal operations soon."