Travel Hassles Put Attendance at Risk

With more and more meetings happening, there really is no "downtime" anymore. The competition for meeting space, hotel rooms, and participants is higher, which is putting pressure on negotiations and the need for "must attend" content.

I think airline costs, schedules, cancellations, and delays may impact people's decisions to travel to meetings (mostly fence-sitters) and may also mean that some participants arrive at meetings late and/or plan to leave early to deal with lines at airports.

As technology increases, more and more audiovisual options are available (and expected) by speakers and audiences - it means that higher quality presentations are easier to produce, but can drive up on-site equipment and labor costs.

Decreasing international attendance has become a major problem with the difficulties in getting visas and the perception (and reality) of hassles, delays, and poor treatment at U.S. Customs. It's imperative to stay up to date on rules and regulations regarding inbound facilitation. All air travelers from Western Hemisphere countries must now have a passport to enter the United States, and the land border requirement will go into effect in mid-2009. The industry must come together to turn this situation around or we risk further attendance drops from international attendees and (worse yet) losing conventions to other countries.

Roger Dow President and CEO, Travel Industry Association (http://tia.org)

In Search of the Two 'Cs'

Although managing meeting logistics has always been a stressful task, understanding and catering to the needs of attendees appear to have become even more so.

As revealed in our 2007 National Business Travel Monitor, life on the road, including attending business meetings and conventions, isn't necessarily the perk those back at the water cooler think it is. In fact, for many business travelers, it's quite burdensome (see table above). The implications are abundantly clear: Extra effort now needs to be devoted to ensuring that future meetings deliver the two things that have become essential to any successful off-premise meeting - convenience and comfort. Convenience may manifest itself in any number of ways: Online meeting/conference registration, an easily accessible venue (including non-stop flights), escorted airport transfers, pre-arrival room registration, free wireless Internet access from both sleeping and meeting rooms, self-serve meals and snacks. And the things that enhance comfort are especially welcomed: Upgraded mattresses and linen and rheostat lighting in hotel guest rooms, easy access to spa services … and delayed checkout!
Peter Yesawich Chairman & CEO, YPartnership
(www.ypartnership.com)

Shifting Customers to Self-Service

Airlines have a strong incentive to shift passenger processing from human agents to self-service channels. Forrester estimates that the average cost for a network-airline passenger to check in through a human agent is $3.02, versus a range of $0.14 to $0.32 for kiosk check-in. Online check-in costs even less because the airline doesn't have to install a kiosk and passengers print their boarding passes using their own paper. Airlines' efforts to shift customers to lower-cost channels have seen great success in the past year, attracting even leisure travelers - a group that historically trails business travelers in technology adoption. Airlines, rail companies, rental car agencies, and even cruise lines can expect more of their customers to use self-service check-in. What about hotels? Sorry, that won't happen - at least not in any meaningful volume - because travelers don't mind talking with a front-desk clerk when checking in to a hotel (kiosk-based checkout will be more successful in lodging).
Henry Harteveldt
"Self-Service Check-In Clicks With Travelers," Forrester Research Inc., Feb. 23, 2007 (http://forrester.com)

No Going Back on Safety and Security

The travel industry around the world should be prepared to confront both issues of crime and of terrorism. Tourism security will more and more come to be understood as having a broad range of issues, from health to natural disasters, from acts of terrorism against hotels, sporting events, and transportation facilities, to at least in some countries rapid kidnappings, highway robberies, and increased levels of crimes of distraction.

Tourism security will take on different faces in different places, but in almost all situations tourism practitioners will have to deal with the fact that "getting there is no longer half the fun." Furthermore, tourism security will move from something that is necessary but does not add to the bottom line to an essential part of a locale's marketing efforts.
Peter Tarlow, Ph.D.
President, Tourism & More (www.tourismandmore.com)

Opportunities With Point-to-Point Carriers

For domestic meetings, there is a real disinterest on the part of network airlines to provide capacity for point-to-point journeys; these carriers are focused on connecting international traffic. Show organizers will have to look at destinations with non-hub airports. That creates lots of opportunities with point-to-point players like Southwest, JetBlue, AirTran, Frontier.

International meetings play to the network carriers' strength. Even if such travel is relatively short-haul - trans-border or Caribbean - they are interested. So the network carriers will focus on smaller meetings with higher revenues and international meetings, using origin destination revenue management (ODRM) to deliver the highest ticket values.

By the time this business cycle winds to a close, you'll see more network airline consolidation occur and more domestic capacity lost. All this will make the service problem, especially on full flights, that much worse. People are at each other's elbows. With no surge capacity, carriers can't re-accommodate travelers on a subsequent flight. This has led to some legendary multi-day stays.

Fuel pressure will continue, and we will see more attempts to introduce fuel surcharges, even imposed retroactively.
R.W. Mann
President, R.W. Mann & Company Inc. (www.rwmann.com)