Is 2005 a Comeback Year?

The meetings industry's slow climb from the trenches of recession and war should continue into next year, as suppliers and planners alike report a relatively lively holiday market along with a mixed but generally positive outlook for 2005.

More specifically, for planners working in healthy industrial sectors, like pharmaceuticals and financial services, or selected major urban areas, like New York and Chicago, the future looks bright. Further, Successful Meetings' biannual State of the Industry survey, which garnered responses from 1,517 planners in the third quarter of 2004, indicates that more meeting planners are seeing larger budgets for next year, especially for training events, sales meetings, and managerial gatherings.

Meanwhile, an informal SM poll of special-event planners in late October found that some are seeing an increase in the number, and the budget, of corporate holiday events this season, perhaps a harbinger of a better 2005. "We've seen a 40-percent increase in [the number of] corporate holiday parties this year over 2003," says Patrick Sullivan, owner/operator for PRA Destination Management in New York City, who also reports an increase in future bookings for 2005 incentive programs. Meanwhile, at the Chicago Marriott Downtown, a popular spot for big corporate shindigs, demand this year has tripled, says Susana Hogan, senior catering sales manager: "It's a very, very good year."

Then again, requests for corporate holiday parties come mostly from firms in economic sectors that are performing well. These include construction, real estate, automobile, insurance, security, and medical firms, as well as smaller, privately held businesses that don't receive the post-Enron scrutiny of shareholders and regulators that household-name firms often do.

In some industries and cities, however, the meeting events market looks less rosy. Harith Wickrema of Harith Productions, in Oreland, PA, outside Philadelphia, reports fewer holiday parties this year, with slightly smaller budgets, although he adds that 2005's overall outlook is "upbeat." And on the West Coast, "My clients are rewarding employees more with bonuses and time off, not parties," reports Andrea Michaels, president of Extraordinary Events in Sherman Oaks, CA. Local hotels and restaurants that in past years would have had waiting lists have been calling to tell her they have space free in December, she notes.

Other planners say that some companies are pushing holiday parties into the first quarter of 2005. "My clients are waiting to see end-of-year sales figures, plus they want to make the party more of an employee-appreciation event," notes Pamela Patsavas, president of Distinctive Event Productions in Oak Brook, IL.

Some longtime event planners lament that the industry