percent said they were engaging in more subvention and giveaways to keep their customers satisfied than five years ago. Eighty-eight percent said their event clients were negotiating more keenly today. Just under a third of respondents (32 percent) said they were expanding their business offering, with 58 percent expecting their total exhibition and meeting revenue to increase in 2012. In the ‘value’ section of the survey, 51 percent of respondents said their event producer clients wanted higher quality food and beverage. Due to the recession, 82 percent said they had changed how they present value to their attendees.


Government Meetings


With austerity being the prevailing mood in the public sector, European governments continued to cut back on spending in 2012, which means public sector travel in the region has been severely reduced for the past two years. A consequence of this approach to events in this sector was noted in the Grass Roots Meetings Industry Report, which stated that the lack of government meeting activity in the UK, which has traditionally driven the mid-market hotel sector, was now clearly taking its toll. Hotels in the three-star market saw rates decrease across the UK, with the largest drop occurring in the south-west, where rates reduced by 35 per cent.


In the US, cutbacks in government meetings have come in the wake of a directive by President Barack Obama in November 2011 for federal agencies to curtail their meetings and travel budgets by 30 percent in fiscal-year 2013. According to an article in Meetings Focus magazine, in 2012 agencies throughout the federal government have cancelled meetings, delayed bookings for new meetings and are holding more meetings at federal facilities. For venues targeting federal government group business, such as the National Conference Center, located in the Washington D.C. area, the impact has been overwhelming. Meetings Focus quotes the Center's director of sales and marketing as saying ‘We immediately lost close to $2 million in business this year from canceled government meetings or government meetings that were shrunk’.


Business Travel


According to the Advito 2013 Industry Forecast, by the end of 2012 the business travel sector was slowing down after a strong start in the first few months of the year. 2012 started well, continuing the recovery in travel bookings which began in 2010 and 2011. However, figures emerging this summer from several different parts of the corporate travel industry showed demand growth tailing off and perhaps even going into reverse. The Forecast linked this fall in demand to corporate nervousness about the euro crisis, which was spreading from Europe itself to other markets, even China, where economic growth is also slowing.


Reed Exhibitions | EIBTM Trends Watch Report 2012 22


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