A look across the pond: UK meeting budgets on the rise

The corporate event industry in the UK is poised for bigger budgets but more scrutiny from their procurement-daddies in the coming years.

According to the Meetings Industry Association (MIA) UK Conference Market Survey, 2008 will bring the biggest increase in budgets since 1999. Don’t think our friends with the strong currency are going to go nuts – they are as roped into procurement/purchasing departments as our boys and girls here in the States.

This means that event managers can look forward to demonstrating and documenting the precise “value” of having two, not one AV technician per breakout, or serving fresh local food over processed hotel-catered buffets. Such is life.

Overall, the UK survey paints a pretty picture of the market. Here’s some of the highlights:

• An increase of 27 per cent in the volume of corporate events in the last 12 months
• Non-profits have seen a 1.4% increase
• Associations’ annual average budget for events increased by 34%
• Corporate budgets were reduced by 4.5 per cent
• 24% of corporate respondents report that procurement teams are now involved in buying decisions – up 11% from last year

Here’s my favorite part – the UK is an acknowledged leader in environmental awareness (and action) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Those surveyed were asked whether CSR had an impact on corporate event teams. A whopping 64% of associations and 77% of corporations said that CSR will be extremely or somewhat influential to their work over the next 10 years.

Consider that fair warning that these trends will follow shortly in the US. CSR is gaining a lot of momentum within US corporations – who set measurable and manageable goals that every part of the organization must work toward achieving.

Imagine your bonus being tied to the carbon footprint of your entire company. All of your suppliers are some of the biggest energy vacuums on the planet – airlines, hotels, ground transportation…not to mention the trees killed to manage all the contracts and binders your on-site team carries around to remain sane. Even if you have no demands for “green meetings”, it’s my feeling that it will become important on some level to be aware of and able to measure the impact of your events in terms of sustainability.

I’m just sayin’