Many meetings since March have been cancelled, postponed, or
moved to virtual platforms because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but about US$2
billion worth of meeting requests for proposals during the second quarter of
2020 were sourced through meetings management company Cvent's network, senior
director of analytics Jeffrey Emenecker said during the recent Cvent Connect
virtual conference.
May marked the bottom for meetings RFP volume, with it
flattening out over the past six weeks or so, he said. The company also started
to see a shift in June to smaller meetings for summer 2020 arrival dates.
Conversions dropped "quite a bit" in late March and early April when
uncertainty around Covid peaked. They began to trend back up to the point
where, in the weeks leading up to the late August conference, they were close
to normal, if not even, with historic data.
"A lot of meetings have been pushed to next year,"
Cvent's chief marketing officer Patrick Smith told BTN. "RFP trends show
sourcing going on for 2021. There's not a lot of certainty in where we will be
in January, but there's definitely sourcing, especially the back half [of 2021]
and into 2022." He also added that since March, 70,000 virtual events have
used Cvent.
The average number of hotels included in RFPs is down about
25 per cent from the first quarter, just before the pandemic hit, Emenecker
added, but there's also been a drop in the number of hotels responding to those
RFPs. "That means for the average RFP, the number of hotels competing is
25 per cent lower than normal, so your chances of winning leads are higher than
normal," he said.
In the US, midsize metro areas performed better on a
relative basis than major metropolitan areas, and that has been consistent
since March, he said. Globally, July RFP volume was 96 per cent of June's
volume, with Asia leading with 197 per cent of June's volume. July RFP volume
in the EU and UK were at 115 per cent of June's volume, the Middle East and
Africa was at 112 per cent, while the Americas (84 per cent) and Australia (74
per cent) lagged behind.
Cvent's data also noted a shift in chain scales for events.
Based on RFPs sourced from the end of July for four weeks into August for
summer 2020 events, those for luxury properties were down 8.9 per cent compared
with what Cvent considers a typical share. Upper-upscale RFPs were down 6 per cent
from Cvent's typical share, and those for independents were down 4 per cent.
Those for economy through upscale segments, which tend to have fewer meeting
and event spaces compared with luxury and upper-upscale properties, were up
18.8 per cent.
Room rates for meetings have trended down as well, and for
the month of August 2020 declined about 11 per cent year over year. Based on
arrival dates, room rates for meetings held June through August were 31 per cent
lower than those tracked during 2019, and those booked for September to
December 2020 were down 23 per cent year over year. Room rates for meetings
booked for the first quarter of 2021 are down 10 per cent year over year, and
for full-year 2021 are lower by 3 per cent, and for full-year 2022 rates are
down 4 per cent year over year.
Emenecker noted that room rates for meetings have decreased
across all chain scales, though less so in luxury and upper-upscale properties;
sourcing has shifted to less-costly chain scales; and there continues to be a
shift toward lower-cost markets.
In addition, meeting size is trending smaller, according to
the Cvent data. For meetings sourced after 1 July to be held in July or August
2020, 49 per cent were for ten or fewer attendees, as are 38 per cent of those
to be held in September 2020. An additional 42 per cent of those September
meetings are for 11 to 50 attendees. Further, almost 40 per cent of the RFPs
awarded the first week of August were for August meetings.
By type of meeting, for summer 2020, 42 per cent were for
space only, 22 per cent were for rooms only, and 36 per cent were for rooms and
space. Those respective percentages for meetings from September 2020 and beyond
were 17 per cent, 23 per cent and 60 per cent.
Year-to-date business transient RFP volume though August was
down 65 per cent year over year, but the RFP season is running late this year,
Emenecker said. So far, Asia is faring the best in terms of relative transient
RFP volume, followed by Europe, then the US, he added.