A frequent and unjustified criticism of international exhibitions and business events is that they leave a heavy carbon footprint when the doors close and the many attendees, exhibitors and service providers head home.
Of course, viewed in isolation, an event does consume a great deal of natural resource. The disposable materials used in stand design, the promotional material and of course the fuel for flights and other transportation all mount up, it seems.
But these accusations are easily countered. What would the alternative cost? How many individual flights would be required to replicate the meetings and opportunities we create at an exhibition? What cost to our working and personal lives?
Far more complicated is the counter-argument for claims the exhibition and meetings industry is full of unnecessary expense, that the experiential elements that define our exhibitions and events are all too often surplus to requirements.
When the recession hit in 2009, the global meetings and events industry came under just this kind of misplaced scrutiny. Face-to-face meetings were seen as expenses that could be eliminated and rhetoric within the media was driven largely by isolated incidents of abuse.
In the United States, it soon became clear that the industry was without the type of advocacy necessary to communicate the positive impact of face-to-face interaction to the people instituting measures aimed at reducing what was perceived, in the wake of the financial crisis, as ‘unnecessary’ expenditure.
As Nan Marchand Beauvois, vice-president of National Councils and general manager of the US Travel Association, a Washington DC-based trade association that represents all industry sectors in the US, points out, those same financial companies that fomented the global financial crisis were criticising the meetings industry for holding meetings in Las Vegas - meetings they called unnecessary and frivolous.
“It was kind of the perfect storm, and our industry in the United States was caught in the middle of it,” she says. “What resulted from this is that a week after our elected officials were saying ‘don’t have meetings in Vegas because it was frivolous’, these companies are bankrupt and they’re spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on entertaining in Las Vegas.”
The impact was significant. The meetings industry in Las Vegas “pretty much shut down”, she claims. Meetings were cancelled, hotels went from 90 per cent occupancy to 50 per cent.
At that time the US Travel Association, a Washington DC-based trade association that represents all industry sectors in the US, got together with all the other associations in the meetings industry who agreed something had to be done. And that was the first time that the CEOs of SITE, MPI, CIC, IAEE and others got together and said, collectively, that the decline had to be arrested. More than US$100m of cancellations took place within six weeks of negative comments by President Obama.
President of Maritz Travel David Peckinpaugh underlines the real-world consequences of this political posturing. “Our company was managing a meeting for [insurance giant] AIG at the luxury Montage hotel in California, which had just accepted TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Programme] money; government money. What hit the news, before the Vegas uproar, was the fact Tiffany boxes were left in rooms, but TARP money was not used for those.
“However, as you know, when something gets in the press it can be quickly spun into a very negative light,” says Peckinpaugh. “In this case incorrectly stating that public money was being inappropriately used for AIG to wine and dine a ‘boondoggle’ for its employees.
“Our company lost $140m in terms of business in the next 60 days,” he says, adding that the company had to lay off nearly 500 people.
So in 2009, the Meetings Mean Business campaign was formed with the goal of protecting and defending the industry from attack. At the time simply called Council, it had a PR campaign targeted at the elected officials in Washington and took full page adverts in the Wall Street Journal, and in USA Today targeted at the politicians. The industry was, literally, as Marchand Beauvois says, “putting its money where its mouth is”.
Fast-forward to 2014 and the industry leaders have redoubled their efforts and relaunched the campaign with a focus on creating one voice to extol the undeniable value that business meetings, events, trade shows, incentive travel, conferences and conventions bring to all sectors of business, government agencies and the economy.
“Today it achieves its goals actively engaging with stakeholders, the media and – crucially – key policymakers, a proactive campaign was built around three pillars: creating personal connections, driving positive business outcomes and building strong communities.” say s Marchand Beauvois, adding that in the US, elected officials might not necessarily understand the industry’s impact.
“We had to educate our lawmakers so they understood the value of our businesses, and also that any of the laws that they were able to put in action are good for our industry. That was important for us.”
It’s a matter that should, after all, resonate with a community that has itself come under intense scrutiny for its own ‘frivolous’ meetings.
“Government meetings in the United States have been under attack for three years,” Marchand Beauvois points out. “The budgets for federal agencies travelling to meetings has been cut 30 per cent and the trend is that it will stay that way and not increase.”
“Some of our biggest supporters are from states that benefit primarily from the industry,” Marchand Beauvois explains. “Senators and congressmen from [Las Vegas home state] Nevada, for example. We probably have 22 very strong supporters, but we have a lot of work to do because every time there is an election we may lose an elected official so it’s an ongoing process to make sure we educate our elected officials.”
The exhibition and meetings industries, both in the US and those elsewhere in the world, will be watching the progress of the coalition with interest.
