1. What’s New in the
Meetings Industry
Paul Kennedy MBE
Kennedy Integrated Solutions

2. Structure
1. Major Industry trends
2. Current and emerging trends
3. Destinations and their supply chains
4. Buyer selection criteria
5. Current buyer focus
6. The challenge for regional destinations
Kennedy Integrated Solutions

3. Major Industry Trends
• Ever increasing competition on the demand side
• Emergence of second and third tier destinations
• The evolution of cities not countries as the economic drivers
• Underlying growth in demand for meetings increasing
• Content beginning to drive rationale for association meetings
• ROI/ROO of meetings becoming central
• Increasing political awareness of the economic importance of the industry
• Cuts in government spending in Western Europe
• Reduced EU regional budget going forward
• Airlines beginning to wake up to the business
• Importance of face to face business development/marketing
• The challenge for the traditional DMC model
• The advent of mobile technologies and remote access to meetings
Kennedy Integrated Solutions

4. Destinations and their supply chains
• Buyers acting more strategically with the supply chain-
destinations must do the same
• The existence of the CVB increasingly important at city
and regional level
• Decline in advertising-shift to face to face-the growth
of fam trips, workshops and smaller trade shows-
difficulty
• The challenge of adopting social media as sales tools
• Must have ambassador schemes for association sector
business-even small association meetings
• The case for representation
Kennedy Integrated Solutions

5. Buyer Selection criteria-the Hygiene
factors
• Accessibility of the destination and venues
• Price and price/contract flexibility
• Quality and range of facilities-you must have
them !
• Quality of service-
• Safety
• Newness, novelty and difference
Kennedy Integrated Solutions

6. Current Buyer Focus
• Flexibility
• Compactness of destinations-n.b. for associations and corporate
organisations-less transport
• Technology infrastructure in destinations, venues and hotels
• Supply Chain acting as a bidding team and capable of accepting quality
control
• Sustainability being translated by adoption of technology and removal
of conference printed materials as well as CSR
• Difference
• Quickness
• Transparency
• Subvention for association meetings the norm?
Kennedy Integrated Solutions

7. The challenges for a regional
destination
• A professionally managed and promoted convention
venue
• Air lift
• Challenging the capital city and/or commercial hub
• Consistent, well resourced and long term marketing
and business development strategy
• Collaboration not competition
Kennedy Integrated Solutions

8. Q&A
Kennedy Integrated Solutions