The time is ripe for traditional travel buyers to learn from the meetings pros

The meetings market is not known as the final frontier in the travel industry for nothing and I’ve long held the belief that the time is ripe for travel and procurement buyers who now look after meetings to step up their game. 

Despite being viewed as the rebellious teenager for many years, meetings management is becoming more mainstream and a survey recently carried out by the show has confirmed that traditional travel and procurement buyers are beginning to understand the benefits of introducing meetings policy, strategy, evaluation and technology into their everyday processes.

The survey of 204 procurement, meetings and business travel managers revealed:

·         69% of meetings budgets have either remained static or declined in the last year

·         23% have increased, and only slightly

·         38% of companies are still without a meetings policy

·         80% of companies do not use technology to manage their meeting spend

·         65% are not involved in measuring meetings ROI

·         42% are using more travel alternatives, such as video conferencing, than they did a year ago

·         25% are managing more UK and short haul destination meetings

·         71% of those organising pre-meeting events, such as golf and spa days, are arranging fewer of them

On the flip side, this is also a great opportunity for suppliers who also need to step up the plate and realise there’s a whole new audience they should be doing business with.

Posted by David Chapple, event director, Business Travel & Meetings Show