Association Meeting Planners are Getting a New Job Description: alchemist. But instead of being asked to transmute lead into gold, they're being asked to provide a champagne and caviar-level meeting on a beer and hotdog budget. This is despite the fact that, according to the 2007 Association Meetings Annual-Meeting Budget Survey, meeting planners generally are finding that the budgets for their annual meetings increased this year, and expectations are high that they will continue to increase for 2008. The problem? They're not increasing fast enough to keep up with rising costs and heightened attendee expectations.

Budgets on the Upswing

Respondents reported a median annual meeting budget just shy of $280,000, and more than a third said theirs were north of half a million (close to 10 percent of respondents had budgets of $2.5 million or more). It would appear that times are fairly flush for association meeting planners. To top it off, 59 percent of those surveyed said their annual meeting budget this year had increased from their 2006 budget, while 34 percent saw no changes. For 2008, more than half expected their annual meeting budget to rise, and almost 40 percent expected their budget would be flat next year. Only 5 percent said their budget decreased in 2007 from 2006; similarly, only 5 percent believed they'd see a dip in meeting monies available for 2008.

This all sounds like good news, but planners still say that they are at best running hard to stay in the same place, budget-wise. More than a third said the pressure to deliver more without spending more is the most important factor driving the need to cut costs. Twenty-nine percent said it was because their attendees are becoming more cost-conscious, and 21 percent pointed the finger at rising meetings-related costs.

How High Is Too High?

While fewer than a quarter of respondents named rising prices as the bane of their budgetary existence, nearly 90 percent reported that some meetings-related costs are unreasonably high for the value provided, notably food and beverage. Within that category, alcohol and coffee stood out as being especially overpriced, respondents said.

Audiovisual, meeting and sleeping room rates, and Internet connections also topped planner's lists of high-priced items. Not surprisingly, these also are among the items that they see as having undergone the most dramatic price increases in recent years. Eighty-four percent said F&B has gone through the roof recently, while 54 percent say room rates have inflated precipitously. Almost half bemoaned the rapid rise in AV costs, and 39 percent said general contractors and service charges are skyrocketing.

The proliferation of service charges and add-on fees also is driving many planners to distraction. As one respondent said, “Today there are so many added costs that it is impossible to clearly budget” for them all. Another lamented: “In the past, the challenge was to negotiate free meeting space. Now it's to get rid of all the extra charges.”

But F&B woes were still the most commented-upon area. “The pendulum has swung in favor of the hotel having more power in the negotiations now,” said one respondent. “For instance, the hotel is adding F&B minimums, and making those minimums higher now, even for very small meetings.” Another respondent pleaded with hotels to “be fair on F&B minimums. We have seen these skyrocket in the last two years, severely limiting where we can hold the meeting.”

Planners' biggest challenges correlate to these rising costs, respondents said, especially when it comes to room rates and F&B. But the main challenge, as one respondent said, was “putting on a meaningful conference that meets members' needs in a cost-effective manner without appearing to be cheap.” Another added, “and make a decent profit!”