Seasonality Fades As Factor In Corporate Meeting Plans
<B> Seasonality Fades As Factor In Corporate Meeting Plans</B>
By Chris Davis
Corporate meeting planners are giving less credence to the calendar as they decide when and where to stage their gatherings, driven in part by short lead times for securing meeting space growing even shorter and increasingly attractive rates in secondary, tertiary or bad-weather locales.
A Business Travel News poll of 556 meeting planners that surveyed the types of meetings that planners stage at different times of the year showed there wasn't a great deal of difference in the seasonality of the events.
In other words, planners are just as apt to stage a sales meeting in March as they are in November, or a management meeting in January as they are in June.
To illustrate, January and February are the most popular months for sales meetings and November and December, the least popular. But it's not a huge difference--about 53 percent of planners surveyed said they've planned a sales meeting in January or February, while about 39 percent said they've planned one in November or December (see chart, page 29). Those figures are among the most disparate in the poll.
The percentage of planners who have held training seminars in a given two-month period, for example, ranged from a low of 47 percent in July and August to a high of about 52 percent in March and April--hardly a wide deviation.
<B>Attendee-Driven Timing</B>
"I think the dates of our meetings are driven by our attendees more than anything," said Rich Del Colle, meetings program manager for Hewlett-Packard. "There's a predictable cycle of meetings, though the times that they're held might fluctuate.
"For example, if you hold a large training meeting in July, you're not holding another training meeting in October or November. You'll hold one in six months, not in three months with another one to follow in nine months just to keep on a calendar-based schedule."
Some meetings buyers say that while many corporations still hold one annual company-wide meeting at a somewhat-set time of the year, the same companies are holding smaller, interdepartmental meetings whenever needed, with little regard to the season.
"We have smaller meetings any time of the year if the situation warrants it," said Isabelle Sherb, a meeting planner and coordinator with Rockford Industries Inc. of Upper Saddle River, N.J. "But we usually have a set time for our two larger annual meetings, one in December or January and the other in May or June."
Sherb said Rockford's larger meetings include at least 300 people.
There are several factors industry-watchers consider driving the trend, many of which involve the economy. While the economy may not be humming at the level it was earlier this year, it's still strong, which many observers feel has led to an increase in the number of meetings that companies are holding.
With unemployment the lowest it's been in decades, corporations have continued to import new employees, either as new hires or as a result of mergers and acquisitions. Some companies address new employment with a meeting to welcome hires and acquaint them with the corporate culture and philosophy.
There's also no shortage of new products and services developed in the corporate world of late. Meetings for the purpose of launching a new product rarely adhere to any sort of annual calendar-based schedule; they're held when the product is ready to be launched.
As a result, meeting planners frequently have shorter lead times to work with to secure meeting and room space, particularly for those smaller meetings, than they do for meetings that are on a set, year-to-year schedule.
Another factor at work here is the high demand for hotel rooms, particularly in large cities, and the subsequent seller's market hoteliers are enjoying. Corporate planners, particularly those who are inclined to be especially frugal, have had to expand the search for inexpensive rooms with little regard to the calendar.
The combined effect of shorter lead times and the seller's market can lead planners to consider secondary and tertiary locations for their meetings, even at less-desirable times of the year. Less expensive hotel rates can draw planners to a locale throughout the year, some said, even if that means staging a meeting during a meteorologically unpleasant time. While many corporations likely would love to gather their employees and clients for a wintertime meeting in Florida, in many cases it could make more financial sense to hold it in July.
"I've worked in both association and corporate planning, and few organizations have many summer meetings at all. People take a lot of vacation time around then," said Dawn Pratt, manager of meetings and incentives for Travel Destinations Management Group. "But some companies or association groups specifically work in hot-weather sites like Phoenix or Palm Springs in June, for the lower room rates. You'll usually see incentive trips in April and May and training in January to May or in the fall."
Also, some corporations or groups may have specific or hard-to-fill needs for their meetings that outweigh considerations about the time of the year the event will be held.
"We have a calendar that we plan one or two years out," said Catherine Clark, meetings coordinator for the United States Tennis Association. "The sites that we look at must have at least 12 tennis courts available for all seven days. Several hotels and resorts can offer that, but not that many."
This isn't to say that seasonality considerations aren't taken into account by planners. Many companies schedule meetings, particularly larger annual events, at approximately the same time from year to year. That way, attendees can plan their agendas around the meeting, instead of trying to shoehorn a meeting into an already crowded schedule.
Many smaller meetings, planners are finding, are being held with less regard to the time of the year, particularly when the bottom line is a primary factor.