Business Benefits of Face-to-Face Meetings
- 4:1 return on investment in incentive travel
- 40%: Prospects converted to new customers
- 28%: Current business that would be lost without face-to-face meetings
- 17%: Profit average company would lose if it eliminated all business travel
- 95% Percentage of Harvard Business Review surveys that saw face-to-face meetings as key to success for long-term client relationships
- 89 % of those respondents considered meetings “essential for “sealing the deal”; 82% for negotiating important contracts; 81 % for interviewing senior staff for key positions and 81% for understanding and listening to important customers.
- 80%: Percentage of executives who said incentive travel has significant impact on morale and job satisfaction
Economic Impacts of Face-to-Face Meetings on Canada (2008)
- 673,400 meetings
- 69.8-million participants
- $23.- billion in spending
- 552,300 full-year jobs
- $14.2-billion in tax revenues (local, provincial and federal)
Future Trends Predicted by Event Managers
- Greater focus on value, quality and competitive pricing
- Larger share of meetings closer to home
- Stronger demand for educational content
- Increased demand for experiential activities outside conference, e.g. whale watching
- Continuing shift toward virtual and web-based technologies, e.g. email marketing, online payments, website registration, blogs
- Increased emphasis on corporate social responsibility, e.g. sponsorship activities
- New interactive formats like Open Space, World Cafe
- Increased use of built-in metrics to measure return on investment
- More hybrid meeting formats that combine live and virtual options, e.g. teleconferences and webcasts
Sources: MPI Foundation, Oxford Economics, Harvard Business Review, Forbes Insights, Future Watch 2010, Plan Ahead Events, Confederation Centre of the Arts, Destination St. John’s, Limelight Communications Group.
