According to the March 2024 Cvent Source Snapshot Report, which analyzes data from tens of thousands of event requests for proposal sent through the company’s system, meeting volume is creeping up while the planning horizon is getting shorter.
Specifically, the total number of RFPs sent in February 2024 was five percent higher than in February 2023. And 52 percent of those RFPs were sourcing an event taking place in 2024, compared to 49 percent of February 2023 RFPs sourcing an event happening in 2023.
Other data from the report on February’s group-booking activity:
• The average lifecycle of an event with 100 to 500 attendees is 208 days, broken down as follows: The average time between an event being created internally and RFPs being sent out is 24 days; the average time between RFPs being sent out and a site decision is 65 days; the average time between the site decision and event activation is 59 days; and the average time between event activation and the event’s start date is 60 days.
• 76 percent of RFPs are sourced to a single metropolitan area, while 24 percent are sourced to multiple metropolitan areas.
• Sixty percent of RFPs are turned down due to unavailable space or dates/pattern.
• For events of more than three days, the most popular starting day is Monday. For three-day events, the most popular starting day was Tuesday. And for two-day events, the most popular starting day was Tuesday.
Given the high percentage of rejected RFPs along with the popularity of Monday and Tuesday starts for multi-day business events, planners might want to consider changing their proposal approach.
At the recent Pharma Forum conference for life-science meeting planners held in Tampa, Michael Dominguez, president and CEO of Associated Luxury Hotels International, told MeetingsNet that “many RFPS we receive say ‘do not contact’ and ‘dates are not flexible.’ Well, that’s why planners are getting so few responses. If a hotel can handle a group one week on either side of its listed dates—or just one day off its pattern but still in the preferred week—we’d love the opportunity to present those possibilities to the planner.”
