The ICCA 10-year Statistics Report, The Association Meetings Market 2001-2010, surveyed a market segmented in many ways: by size, by the kind of people who visit the meetings, by the purpose of the meetings as well as many other criteria.
When segmenting the international meetings market by initiator, two primary markets can be defined: the corporate market and the non-corporate market.
ICCA’s area of expertise is in the international association market. This embraces medical meetings (the largest segment); scientific and other academic; trade organisations; professional bodies and social groupings. In terms of size, budget, duration and complexity there are massive variations. However, some similarities can be identified:
- Almost every ‘specialty’ has an association which holds oneor more meetings
- Most associations have meetings that are repeated at regular intervals
- The meetings rotate, rarely returning to the same destination within a short time-span.
- The initiative to host a meeting often comes from a national association
- It is not unusual to find lead times of five years or more
- A growing minority of about 25-30 per cent of the decision making processes no longer includes an official bidding procedure, but rather a ‘central initiator’ who selects the location and venues based on strict criteria.
Scope
The 10-year statistics report is based on the ICCA Association Database, which means the figures cover meetings organised by international associations which take place on
a regular basis and rotate between a minimum of three countries.
It provides a ‘snapshot’ of qualifying events sampled on 9 May 2010.
Europe emerges as the biggest home region for association headquarters, with 59 per cent of HQs based there over the past 10 years.
Europe is also the most popular destination, with 54 per cent of the qualifying meetings being hosted there in 2010. However, Europe’s market share has been decreasing, along with the relative popularity of North America and an increase in attractiveness of Asia/Middle East mostly and Latin America.
Number of meetings per country
The USA and Germany have been the first and second ranked countries, respectively, over the past 10 years, measured by the number of international meetings organised. Germany is narrowing the gap to the No.1, USA, while France, Italy, Spain, the UK have consistently held places in the top 10 over the decade.
Number of meetings per city
Most cities have gradually attracted more meetings over the past decade. For the sixth year in a row, Vienna is the most popular city, event though there were fewer events in the city compared to previous years.
Over the decade Barcelona is a strong contender, never lower than fifth place. Next to Vienna and Barcelona only Singapore has managed to attract a number of meetings that allowed it to be always among the top 10 cities.
Low point
The average number of participants per meeting reached its lowest point of the past decade in 2010 with 571 participants per international meeting. Although, since 2007, the average number of participants has stabilised.
The highest average over the past 10 years (696) was in 2001.
Over the past 10 years small meetings (50-249 participants) doubled their market share at the cost of meetings attracting over 500 participants. North America has been the region with the largest average of participants per meeting, its meetings attracting 5.37m people, compared to almost 5.2m people attending in 2009.
Frequency and length
The market share of annual meetings has increased over the past 10 years, while meetings taking place less often than once a year are decreasing in relative numbers.
May through November has always been the most popular time to organise meetings, with September the favourite month for associations, followed by June, October and May.
Throughout the last decade the average length of meetings has been declining. The average in 2010 was 3.85 days.
Venues used
Over the 10-year period the use of meeting facilities in hotels has been increasing, taking over the first place as most popular type of venue in 2005. This category consolidated its first place in 2010 with a 43 per cent market share, compared to under 35 per cent 10 years ago. The second most popular venue is the conference centre, although usage has decreased over the decade from 37.4 per cent to 26.3 per cent.
Subjects
The order of the top 10 most popular conference subjects has remained stable, with medical science the most popular by far. Technology and science were the second and third favourites, respectively.
Registration fees and expenditure
Over the first half of the decade the average registration fee per delegate per meeting increased until 2005, when meetings became shorter and less expensive.
Ever since, fees have been increasing, bar a blip in 2009, reaching an average of US$584
per delegate per meeting in 2010, the highest average registration fee over the period under review.
Average total expenditure of all meetings in the ICCA Association Database shows an ongoing increase over the past 10 years, with the exception of 2005 and 2009 (mostly due to the low numbers of participants per meeting in these years). Meetings spend in 2010 of US$13.8bn was the second highest (after 2008).
With an absolute increase in registration fees and expenditure per delegate per meeting, while meetings are getting shorter, the average registration fee and total expenditure per delegate per day are increasing relatively as well as absolutely.
The figures relate only to personal expenditures of the delegate and do not include additional investments from the organiser, neither secondary economical effects for the destination.
There has been a fluctuating trend in average income from registration fees and average total delegate spend. The lowest rates were recorded in 2005 and the highest in 2004 and 2008. In 2010 the level stood at US$333,617 in terms of the average income from fees per meeting and US$1,516,442 in terms of the average total expenditure per meeting.
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