A major new industry report, commissioned by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), ICCA, Meeting Professionals International (MPI) and Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) strongly recommends adopting a form of Tourism Satellite Accounting to measure the economic global importance of the meetings industry.

The proposals, which already have the backing of leading association councils, are set to take the meetings industry into a new era of official recognition, international prestige and general acceptance as a mainstream fiscal driver.

The report ‘Measuring the Economic Importance of the Meetings Industry. Developing a Tourism Satellite Account Extension’ is the fruition of three years of work by the four partners. The report was written in association with the Sustainable Tourism CRC at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.

However, the partners warn the proposals will not be implemented without overwhelming support and political goodwill worldwide.

It can only be achieved with the modification of the existing Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and the co-operation of governments and government agencies to collect industry data in an agreed standard method that meets strict international statistical requirements.

“For too long the meetings industry has been the ‘poor relation’ but with no consistent data there has never been a conclusive means of convincing the world of its huge economic merits”, said Tom Nutley, Chairman of RTE, who first introduced the concept in 2003.

“This is a huge, evolving project and it will not happen overnight. But we now have a basis to go forward and secure the future of the meetings industry as an important economic contributor.

“The road is a still a long one, but there is now light at the tunnel. I would ask every professional who cares for and works in the industry to get behind these recommendations and lobby everyone who will listen and has some influence to ensure its execution. Without it, the industry will continue to be denied its rightful and deserved place in the world economies.”

Antonio Massieu head of the UNWTO Department of Statistics and Economic Measurement of Tourism and Coordinator of the Department's team of consultants UNWTO said:”Measuring the activity of holding meeting industry events at national and sub-national levels is of interest to Tourism, because attending meetings, conferences and conventions is a purpose of visit of tourists.

“In order to be internationally comparable, the economic contribution of the meetings industry  requires first to recognize and delineate a place for their activity in the United Nations classifications of activities and products (ISIC and CPC, respectively), and second to determine what services are provided and how they should be measured.

“The activity is now recognized as ISIC 8230 under the heading “Organisation of conventions and trade shows” of which 8231 is “Organization of conventions”. It is a service regarded as an administrative and support service to business. The service provided is classified as CPC 855961 “Convention assistance and organization services.

“This official recognition by the UN early this year implies an increasing interest in focusing on the macroeconomic contribution of the meetings industry both from International and National Organizations: UNWTO is specially interested in the tourism connection. From this perspective, we need to isolate and bring together revenues and costs associated with holding meetings and all the expenditures of tourists whose purpose of travel is to attend meetings, conferences and conventions.

Leigh Harry, ICCA President said: "Recognition of the meetings industry by UNWTO is a significant step forward, and one which has directly resulted from the strategic partnership between ICCA, MPI and Reed Travel Exhibitions.

“ICCA is committed to further push this initiative as it has the greatest capacity to deliver recognition, broad public understanding and acceptance of the meetings industry. The collective support of leading industry associations for this initiative reflects the unification of key players to reach the vision in this project -  economic evaluation, recognition of the wider impact of meetings, and clear identification as a distinctive industry."
 
Didier Scaillet, Director of European Operations and Global Development for MPI said:” Like most defining moments, I know that we will only measure the importance of this in several years.

“Nevertheless I am convinced that today is an important milestone for the meetings industry. Thanks to a unique co-operation between leading industry players, our economic sector has now a reference methodology to capture its economic impact.

“Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done by each and every meeting professional as we will only succeed as an industry. But this initiative paves the way to a brighter future where the value and the wealth creation of the meetings industry will be fully recognized by governments, corporations, academic and the general public. MPI is very proud to have been part of this initiative and will continue to support its implementation on a global basis.

Among the 77-page report’s recommendations is a call for the industry to use the same universal definitions. This includes:

• Using ‘The Meetings Industry’ as a general descriptive term for the industry
• Adopting the general aim to motivate participants to conduct business, share ideas, learn, network and discuss
• Assessing a meeting as having a minimum number of ten participants (a practice already widely used by meetings organisations)
• Agreeing that a meetings venue includes payment and involves a half day ( four hours) or more

The report will now be considered in detail by the partners’ Steering Committee, which is responsible for building on the findings of the report and fulfillment of its recommendations, as well as supporting the recommendations with an on-going communications and PR programme.

The main issues to be discussed and resolved are:

• How an international standard method can be agreed
• Agreement on the scope of the industry
• Examination of how national industry associations can be ‘brought on board’ to actively support the measurement of the industry in their country
• Encouragement of national industry associations to educate their members and other industry participants to actively support the idea of a standard industry measurement
• Persuasion of industry participants to fully co-operate with and contribute to its implementation