The share of meetings booked in 2019 through Meetingsbooker.com via requests for proposals declined 11 percentage points year over year to 53 percent, according to a new report from the venue sourcing tech firm. The remaining 47 percent were booked through the platform's "instant book" option.
The Meetingsbooker.com report highlights venue-sourcing trends based on a sample of 10,000 confirmed bookings made through its platform in 2019.
Illustrating the trend of alternative spaces gaining prominence, the percentage of 2019 Meetingsbooker.com meetings booked via instant book at hotels decreased from 52 percent to 49 percent compared to 2018, while the share of those booked at co-working or business centers increased to 23 percent, a 10 percentage point gain. Coinciding with this finding, the percentage of full-day meetings booked declined 5 percentage points to 44 percent, while venue space booked by the hour jumped 4 percentage points to 15 percent.
Meanwhile a vast majority, 92 percent, of meetings booked via instant book had one to 20 attendees, with 8 percent with 21 to 40 attendees. This breakdown represents a shift of three percentage points from the prior report, when smaller meetings accounted for 95 percent of bookings. Further, the most common size for online meetings booked was 20 attendees, while bookings via RFP averaged 87 attendees.
The average lead time for online reservations was 14 days, same as it was in 2018, with 51 percent of those bookings being made within a week of the event. Online bookings showed an average lead time of 12.5 days, while those booked through RFP methods averaged 62 days, according to the report.
The report also shows that 46 percent of the events booked on the platform through instant booking received discount rates, while 58 percent of RFP events did so.