EIBTM 2008 Industry Trends & Market Share Report - HCB

As a destination for meetings and events, the US continues to enjoy considerable
popularity, emerging yet again as the top country for international association
conferences in the latest ICCA (International Congress & Convention Association)
rankings. For the UK market, the US was, as usual, the first choice for events
planners, accounting for just under half of all groups. New York, Chicago and Boston
were the top three long-haul city destinations for the UK market (M&IT 2008 Trends
& Spends survey).
MPI’s September 2008 Business Barometer, a quarterly supplement to the annual
FutureWatch survey, shows that even before the October economic surprise, survey
respondents identified the poor economy (16.6 percent), budget cuts (12.6 percent)
and increased travel costs (9.9 percent) as the top trends affecting the meeting and
events industry over the next six months. In the same projected time frame, most
people (44 percent) said that they expected to see industry business remain flat or
increase by less than 5 percent
EUROPE
Europe’s dominance of the market for meetings of international associations was
once again demonstrated by the annual statistics published by ICCA. The ICCA
rankings cover meetings organised by international associations which take place on
a regular basis and which rotate between a minimum of three countries. The data
represents a ‘snapshot’ of qualifying events in the ICCA Association Database as
sampled on 14 April 2008.
This year the ICCA Data researchers identified over 6,500 events which took place in
2007, a rise of approximately 800 over 2006. Partly this reflects the strength of the
market, partly it is due to a record number of members sending ICCA their calendar
information to help identify new events.
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