ICCA is pleased to share the findings of a survey conducted to explore Association Meeting Needs.
The survey was conducted in collaboration with the African Society of Association Executives (AfSAE) and the Asia-Pacific Federation of Association Organizations (APFAO).
The survey set out to answer five key questions:
1. How are associations' strategic priorities changing?
2. How are association meetings changing?
3. How can meeting suppliers support associations to make meetings more sustainable?
4. What are the most important requirements for meeting suppliers?
5. How can suppliers help associations achieve their goals?
A total of 171 responses were received globally from across the regions, providing a well-rounded picture of the current and future thinking of associations with regard to their international meetings.
Survey key findings
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Meetings and events are still the largest segment of revenue generation for associations (for 43% of respondents this is the main revenue stream) and the survey shows just over half (52%) of associations have been able to run an in-person meeting again since the start of the pandemic.
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41% of respondents will hold their largest meeting in 2022 in-person, and 39% in hybrid format with one or multiple destination hubs.
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64% of respondents state it is very of fairly important for their organization to reduce the environment impact of their events.
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When it comes to regional meetings, compared to 2021 results, there seems to be less uncertainty around this and less association planning regional meetings, indicating a shift back to international meetings.
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Amongst the ‘traditional’ services provided by PCOs and AMCs, there is a shift towards a greater need of support of the production of virtual events as well as experiential and meeting design. Overall, there is a greater need for services in general, with the majority of services scoring higher compared to 2021 results.
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The majority of associations have fully embraced digitalization and are leveraging the benefits of this, without compromising the need or desire to return back to in person activities. Especially when it comes to networking, business events and exhibitions; in-person meetings remain the preferred format.