The Eastside Rooms’ cost of living impact survey reveals that 83 percent of organizers saw an increase in event costs in the past year. In response, associations/not-for-profits and corporates have needed to seek different ways to balance the budget, from reduced catering and AV to increases in registrations fees.
The Eastside Rooms, located in England, conducted a survey of 125 event professionals from around the world in October to identify challenges and opportunities faced due to economic challenges. While 69 percent of the respondents were from the U.K., 19 percent were from Europe and the remaining 12 percent from the rest of the world.
Overall, 83 percent of respondents have seen an increase in event costs in the past year, with 45 percent describing it as "significant." When broken down, associations/not-for-profits are feeling the bite more significantly, with 88 percent of them seeing an increase versus 73 percent of corporates. The two different sides of the industry are attempting to mitigate the financial challenges in a number of different ways: Fifty-one percent of associations/not-for-profits are reducing catering costs at their events, which compares to just 25 percent of the corporates, which see the biggest opportunity to make savings in a reduction in delegate numbers (28 percent).
Another stark difference between the two sides of the market are changes in AV/production costs, where 35 percent of associations/not-for-profits are reducing spend compared to just 20 percent of corporates. Another area where associations/not-for-profits are making a significant additional change is the amount charged for registration, with 59 percent increasing fees; this compares to 28 percent of the corporates (48 percent across all respondents). It is noteworthy that 23 percent of the associations/not-for-profits are putting registration fees up by more than 10 percent.
One area where the two sectors do line up is the frequency of events, with both associations/not-for-profits (29 percent) and corporate (25 percent) reducing how often they are holding meetings and conference.
For more information, visit www.eastsiderooms.com.
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