MPI, Amex Survey: Meeting Cancellations, Limited Budgets Underscore Downturn

Organizations throughout the world are canceling meetings and, at minimum, clamping down on any increase in meeting spending in 2009 as the global economy stagnates, according to the executive summary of a survey of more than 2,700 meeting professionals, produced by Meeting Professionals International and American Express.

This year's edition of MPI's annual FutureWatch study, which the association will release in full at its MeetDifferent conference—formerly known as its Professional Education Conference—next month in Atlanta, shows that organizations on average cancelled more than four meetings in the second half of 2008 and an additional 3.4 this year. Assessing an average value of $200,000 per meeting, MPI translates those cancellations to represent 8 percent of all activity in the latter half of 2008 and 7 percent in 2009.

"After three strong years, the global meeting and event industry is coming to grips with a major paradigm shift and the FutureWatch data reveals how acute the expectations are for change," said MPI president and CEO Bruce MacMillan in a statement.

While MPI said U.S. corporate meeting planners predicted average per-meeting attendance would increase 12 percent in the United States from 2008 levels, total global per-meeting expenditure will increase only 2 percent. MPI further said that average per-meeting expenses would decline by 6 percent in relation to the organization's average overall budget.