Study: Web's Role In Mtgs. Varies Widely

New data show that all but a small minority of corporate meetings buyers have integrated the Internet into their meeting sourcing routines, but also contain little evidence of consensus on the specific functions the rest seek to move online. As a result, technology suppliers are scrambling to offer a myriad of options to meet a wide range of corporate needs.

Faced with some buyers seeking a fully integrated solution that includes full meetings management and online booking on the one hand, and buyers who simply want to research a hotel on the other, suppliers have moved quickly to partner with each other to ensure all those needs can be met simply, if not yet seamlessly.

An exclusive Meetings Monitor poll of 137 corporate meetings buyers shows 90 percent use the Internet while planning meetings, and a great majority—80 percent—use the Web for destination and property research, arguably the simplest and most widely offered service in the industry. Beyond that, though, the buyers show they have different ideas of the Web solutions they find relevant.

About 56 percent have used an online meetings registration application, with slightly more of that percentage using an internally developed tool. Almost half have used an Internet tool for site selection, and about a third each have used the Web for online request for proposal transmission and booking air or ground transportation. "We've seen some good products, and we'll probably look more seriously at them over the next six months," said Cathy Spivey, senior manager of travel services at Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc. "We're interested in progressing into the registration area. It's not just travel. We want to partner closely to be able to plan events and communicate big company initiatives as well as handle data management."

The key, though, for a company of Home Depot's size, is finding a technological application that can assist attendees without regard to their respective technical expertise. "Our population that attends events ranges from upper management to assistants," Spivey said. "Any application must support the most tech-savvy employees to the least."

That is the challenge for the top tech vendors. Today, solutions must be able to meet both simple and complex meetings management needs. The industry currently is focusing on integrating existing tools; notably, online attendee registration with air booking and consolidated data management.

"We believe the market is looking for three hot things: online site search and RFP capability; the ability to control their budgets, follow compliance, consolidate spending and improve their negotiating power; and integrating housing and registration with air and bar booking," said Ed Tromczynski, president of Twinsburg, Ohio-based meetings management Web site PlanSoft. "The question is, can you use different suppliers to do all of that? Can you afford to roll out two or three different applications?" Tromczynski said this year will be the time many companies seek to integrate the necessary technology for these applications and react accordingly.

This already has happened, to an extent. With one notable exception—GetThere, which has not sought or accepted partnerships allowing access to its online air booking system or its DirectMeetings site sourcing or attendee management applications—most online tech vendors have partnered with others offering complementary services, be it site selection, data consolidation, attendee management or online booking.

"The industry has picked up on sourcing, budgeting, registration and e-marketing," said Rodman Marymor, CEO of Berkeley, Calif.-based Cardinal Communications, creator of the RegWeb online registration application. "It's all going to 'planner platforms' through partnerships or acquisitions, so there are integrated tools that let you go from one system to the next and knows who you are throughout the process.

Marymor pointed to GetThere, PlanSoft, ProcurePoint and Cardinal partner StarCite as four technology companies that could serve as the touchpoint for such platforms. "It makes sense because the whole planning process would be hooked together," Marymor said. "And the technology has evolved to make that integration easier. So it would not necessarily have to be under one brand, because planners would be able to create their own platforms using different products."

GetThere DirectMeetings customer Tom Walker, manager of travel services for Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Steelcase Inc., has used the product for more than a year. "We use it primarily for meeting registration," Walker said. "We do use it for some site selection, but about half of our meetings are very close to our headquarters, so the RFP tool hasn't really come into play and we haven't used the attendee registration piece either." Walker sees the most value from meeting registration, which allows him to track and aggregate meeting expenditure data. "It's very important for us to track that data, because we want to have an accurate count of what percentage of our total travel spend is for groups and meetings," he said.

Some of the competition for tech services, especially for large companies, may not be among the tech vendors but between suppliers and internal corporate services departments. Several companies already have created and posted their own online RFPs, and some even created attendee management pieces. "We've looked at this a lot, and there's some really good stuff out there, but we don't have a need for an eye-popping marketing piece," said Tom Keville, Accenture global director of meeting and event support in Chicago. "We have our needs covered with data consolidation because we built a database internally. And we don't really need site selection capabilities because we have planners in all the major markets and even some secondary ones."