Demand management reduces costs for meetings spend
CWT offers tips to trim spending for travel buyers
By Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 5/28/2009 11:51:00 AM
As reported on Purchasing.com recently, meetings and events are taking more than their share of hits in this down economy. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Many companies are continuing to plan meetings, and there are ways for travel buyers to keep spending down and still hold a productive event.
Enter demand management.
According to a recent survey by Purchasing 46% of travel buyers have responsibility for the meetings and event spend. And purchasing managers can use demand management to shape demand for all kinds of indirect goods and services including travel and meetings, says Chris Sawchuck, procurement advisory leader with The Hackett Group in Atlanta.
Travel management company Carlson Wagonlit Travel in Minneapolis has put together a list of demand management strategies specifically geared the meetings and events spend:
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Destinations. Shift meetings and events away from costly major markets like New York and Los Angeles to secondary cities such as Nashville or Denver. Most of these destinations, CWT points out, offer a similar overall attendee experience at a lower price.
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Attendees and duration. Opportunity typically exists to scale back the length of meetings as well as number of attendees. Some simple tactics such as starting earlier and conducting working lunches go a long way toward reducing meeting length. Also, scrutinize number of attendees based on benefit of their attending in relation to their role within the company.
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Piggy-back meetings. Consider holding multiple meetings back-to-back in a single location, using the same group of suppliers. This, CWT says, increases volume that can be leveraged.Small meetings. Small meetings—those with fewer than 50 attendees—can represent significant expense. Evaluate the necessity of these meetings and track expenditures to leverage volume.
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Leverage preferred transient providers. When possible, meeting planners should work with suppliers used for transient business travel to take advantage of negotiated discounts. This also allows purchasing to leverage combined meetings and events and transient volume in future negotiations to obtain better pricing and service.
See also: Travel buyers take on new role in down economy
Fleet managers concerned about cutting costs
05/17/2009
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