What Meeting Planners Want
December 5, 2019Stay in the know with exclusive industry news, click here and subscribe to our eNewsletter today!
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Unique experiences and award-winning restaurants are the shiny new penny in the meetings-and-events industry. However, what meeting planners really want are the basics.
Based on the responses in STR’s Destination Meeting Assessment Program (DestinationMAP) 2019 survey, the majority of planners still rank safety, cleanliness, accessibility, and value as their top considerations when selecting a destination for a meeting or event. The number of hotel rooms available ranks fifth on the list, followed by several other hotel-specific considerations, ranging from conference hotel attractiveness to upscale offerings. These rankings are not all that different from 10 years ago.
Despite all of the buzz in the industry, unique experiences (both venues and food) and award-winning restaurants show up only at the bottom of the list, with under a third of meeting planners considering these items “very important” when selecting a meeting/event destination. That’s not to say these are not significant; it just shows that there are other factors taking precedence for a majority of meeting planners.