Corporates have changed their policies on buying meetings since the disastrous recession of 2009, delegates at the ITM annual conference were told.
David Taylor, director of sales for Grass Roots, said companies were avoiding booking external meetings and “spending money doing up their own meetings rooms.”
He told delegates at the event at Heythrop Park, Oxfordshire that there was also a “focus on virtual meetings”.
Corporates were also taking a “more cost-effective” attitude to meetings since the recession with fewer people attending shorter events.
Taylor said two other examples of how corporates were saving money was the increased use of serviced apartments instead of hotels for delegates and by selecting venues other than four-star hotels.
He said the use of non-residential centres was up by 32% and of unusual venues by 26%.
He said the meetings industry was beginning to recover after being on the “crest of a wave three years ago before Lehman’s fell.”
The industry saw a 40% increase in meetings last year, with a 10% increase in meetings oversees.
But there was still a cautious attitude with just under half of companies cutting their meetings budget and 25% keeping the same as before.
One of the main areas to enjoy an increase in business, Taylor said, were non-residential centres, with more companies using this type of venue.
This had helped give a boost to the top five providers of meetings venues: Hilton, Marriott, Radisson, Holiday Inn and De Vere, which together had seen their market share leap by 34%.
But Taylor said there was still a shortage of venues at peak times for the industry, although this would be eased with the arrival of 790 new venues over the next three years.