october sales forum wrap-up
The TRCVB's final sales forum of the year focused on meetings and events industry trends and forecasts for 2011 and beyond. Those who attended this interactive and educational forum gained useful takeaways to meet clients? needs and understand what challenges they are facing to ensure successful events.

Some of the top industry trends that were shared at the sales forum included:

  • Nearly 1.8 million meetings and events are held each year and meeting planners incur the most costs from: meeting planning and production, accommodations, food and beverage, air transportation and venue rental.
  • Religious meetings and conferences faired the economic downturn much better than other industry segments and were able to take advantage of lower meeting space rates enabling them to incorporate more meeting services into their events. 
  • Meeting planners are dealing with shrinking budgets for meetings and events and must look at ways to cut costs. One area they look to save money in is with food and beverage.
  • Association meeting planners expect the number of meetings to increase as well as budgets. However, they are still looking to keep costs down.
 
The TRCVB thanks all of our hosts and everyone who participated in our 2011 sales forums. We will soon begin brainstorming interesting and relevant topics for 2012. If there are any topics you would like to see discussed at a future sales forum, please email me at paul@traveltacoma.com.