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Groups and Meetings: Market Opportunity Redefined
PhoCusWright, Jan 2007, Pages: 48
Methodology
To ascertain a comprehensive view of the groups and meetings marketplace that encompasses both supply-side and demand-side factors, a variety of research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, were used. We employed a 360-degree approach to ensure capturing all stakeholder perspectives: suppliers of accommodations and event space (hotels, conference centers, cruise ships, convention centers, ski resorts, casinos, airlines, and rental cars), meeting planners and buyers, consumers and meeting attendees, and technology providers/online intermediaries. In addition, we probed consumer/planner buying behaviors and preferences. Data collection techniques included telephone interviews, surveys, content analysis of various Web sites and a detailed review of the available industry literature. Size of the market estimates and forecasts, segment data, technology developments and key trends are based on this approach. All research was performed in the latter half of 2006 and underwritten by a number of companies that operate in the groups and meetings arena.
Suppliers
Between August and October 2006, more than 35 executives were interviewed from 24 companies about their current and forecasted volumes of groups business, technology initiatives, strategy and their assessment of and outlook for the meetings and group arena. The companies that participated represented a good cross-section of the industry in terms of size, market segmentation and travel sector focus.
Meeting Planners and Buyers
In September 2006, an invitation to participate in an electronic survey was distributed to over 2,000 meeting professionals and corporate meeting decision-makers via email (our Corporate Meeting Planner Survey). The focus of the survey was to capture data regarding corporate meeting characteristics and current and future usage of online tools to plan and book meetings and group events. Twenty participants from leading professional meeting planning organizations were then selected for follow-up telephone interviews to augment survey results.
Consumers and Meeting Attendees
In August 2006, two different consumer audiences were surveyed online to explore shopping and buying behavior, present and future consumption trends, needs and perceptions (our Leisure Group Traveler Survey). One audience consisted of adults who had planned at least one group gathering or meeting in the past year involving an overnight stay. The second audience consisted of a random sampling drawn from over 32,000 names of “registered planners” (i.e., people who signed up to use a group booking Web site). Over 1,100 responses were collected and used.
Technology Providers
Between August and October 2006, executives at 17 leading and emerging technology providers were interviewed by telephone to explore technology trends and developments in the groups and meetings arena. These executives represented a range of experience in online housing, online site selection/sourcing, meetings management technology, hotel forecasting and leisure group bookings.
Sizing the Group Market Space
Two principal goals behind this research effort were to 1) size the groups and meetings marketplace, and 2) determine at what pace this business would move online. To provide the best estimates possible for the size of the groups and meetings market and to forecast how quickly business would likely shift from offline to online channels, we took a very detailed approach and employed multiple sources of information. These included an analysis of the available industry literature, previous research, and empirical research conducted as part of this study to assess both the supply and demand-side characteristics of the marketplace.
We built a sizing and forecasting model using these findings and industry data to aggregate estimates and compute final projections. Given that this study is the first of its kind and takes such a comprehensive view of the marketplace, sizing estimates and forecasts provide a baseline and set of directional measures that will be monitored and adjusted over time, just as we did in the early years of measuring and predicting travel e-commerce growth and trends.
Data represent the years 2005-2008; 2005 (actual) and 2006-2008 (projected).
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