WorldTravel BTI Clients Split On Meetings Outsourcing

The percentage of companies that outsource meetings management functions is slightly higher than the percentage of companies that handle meetings through their corporate travel department, according to an annual client benchmarking survey released last month by WorldTravel BTI.

According to the survey of 183 WorldTravel BTI client companies, 47 percent of respondents outsource meetings management to a third party and 45 percent of respondent companies manage meetings through the corporate travel department. Also, 71 percent of respondent companies said their travel department leverages transient and meetings air spending in negotiations.

"The meetings industry is five years behind the corporate travel industry in terms of technology, awareness, sophistication, policy, procedure, procurement involvement, etc.," said Scott Graf, president of Chicago-based WorldTravel Meetings & Incentives, the meetings management division of WorldTravel BTI. "What happened in Corporate America on the corporate travel side seven or eight years ago is now happening on the meetings side."

Respondent companies varied widely on the frequency of their meetings. Twenty-five percent said less than 10 meetings were planned each year and 28 percent said more than 150 meetings were planned annually. Companies were split on how many attendees their average meeting included. According to the survey, 55 percent of respondents said the average meeting included 50 to 250 attendees and 41 percent said the average meeting drew less than 50 attendees.

Strategic meetings management initiatives launched by corporate procurement departments continue to rise, according to WorldTravel BTI analysis, as travel-related budgets "move under the existing company financial structure for vendor negotiations."

Technology "is the enabler to measure and demonstrate return on investment" in procurement-based strategies, according to the survey. The implementation of a meetings technology system follows a similar cycle as the implementation of an online booking tool, and "lessons learned from increasing the adoption of technology in the corporate travel market points to several key factors," according to the survey. These factors included selecting technology that's appropriate to the corporate culture, senior-level management support, companywide mandates or enforcement and communication with end users.

Only 27 percent of survey respondents said their companies used meetings management software. Among those respondents, 28 percent used WTMI's own Plan2Attend tool, 20 percent used StarCite's RegWeb tool, and 12 percent used homegrown systems.