Economic Impact
Next Entries »Pandemic I
Friday, May 1st, 2009So this is what a Level 5 pandemic alert feels like.
I walked home along Ottawa’s scenic Rideau Canal Wednesday afternoon, just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the global pandemic threat level to five on a six-point scale. In WHO parlance, Level 5 means a global pandemic is imminent.
For practical purposes, the [...]
Solutions in the Eye of the Storm
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009An interesting thing is happening on the way to the economic recovery.
We certainly aren’t there yet—in the economy as a whole, or in meetings and events. The sheer, accumulating weight of cancellations is setting off alarm bells across the industry, and the U.S. Center for Exhibition Industry Research has just reported the first decline in [...]
A Couple of Million Jobs at Stake
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009BREAKING NEWS:
On March 10, The Huffington Post published my blog item on the meetings industry crisis and the Kerry bill now before the U.S. Congress.
The central argument, drawing on data from MPI Foundation Canada’s study of the economic impact of meetings and events, was that the attack on meetings in the U.S. could touch a [...]
An Audacity of Scope: A Million Tons of Trash
Thursday, March 5th, 2009Participants at the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) conference in Pittsburgh last week adopted a big, audacious challenge.
The gathering of 150 or so meeting professionals called for a million tons of trash (or a million metric tonnes, outside the United States) to be diverted or recycled from the meetings and events that take place in [...]
Debris in All Directions
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’ now.
Is it a prepaid surprise, or C.O.D.?
The Music Man
Lyric by Meredith Willson
1957
The Wells Fargo Wagon is beginning to look like a train wreck in all directions.
Meeting professionals have been hearing all about the pushback Wells Fargo ran into, in the media and in the U.S. Congress, until it [...]
How Incentives Can Change the World (And How the World Can Change Incentives)
Friday, February 13th, 2009ATLANTA – A tantalizing question is emerging from the raging debate over incentive meetings, employee retreats, and the appropriate use of U.S. government bailout dollars:
Can the principles and practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) help reassert the legitimacy of meetings, the industry that plans them, and the client organizations that are now weighing whether to [...]
Now It’s Up to All of Us
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009ATLANTA – In the nearly 12 years that I’ve been a member of Meeting Professionals International (MPI), I have never seen our industry so angry, energized, and ready to argue the value and business results of a well-orchestrated meeting.
As my mother might have said, in a reasonable imitation of some of our earlier-generation relatives: “Dahlink, [...]
Downturn? What Downturn?
Thursday, January 8th, 2009As a meeting professional, how would you have felt if you’d received the following RFP?
Meeting dates: December 15-31
Scope: Nation-wide (United States only)
Estimated participants: 50,400
Room nights: None
Venues: 4,200
Average participants per venue: 12
Food and beverage: Provided
Audio-visual requirements: None
Air travel: None
Carbon footprint: Local ground transportation; public transit and carpools encouraged
Mythical client: US Department of Health and Human Services
As [...]
The Numbers Tell a Story
Friday, August 22nd, 2008TORONTO—When more than 70 million participants attend 671,000 meetings in one year, your first reaction might be that everybody needs to get out a little more.
But when it turns out that those meetings generated $32.2 billion in spending and 235,500 full-year jobs across Canada in 2006, representing an economic sector that was just a bit [...]