Executive Summary from the IAEM White Paper

The publication of the Brookings Institution Report, “Space Available” in January 2005 has stirred a burst of media attention about two questions:

• Is there now a glut of convention center space?
• Is the business travel and meetings industry in eclipse?

This document discloses that the conclusions contained in “Space Available” are fatally flawed because the author relies upon notoriously inaccurate data and then reaches conclusions that are based upon simplistic and incomplete data analysis. The value of the 35-page report can be summarized in a nine word self-evident sentence:

“Cities should be careful when evaluating convention center projects”

Disturbingly, the author of “Space Available” completely ignores highly reliable and freely available data first published in 2001 by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) as well as several other sources of credible data that clearly reveal a robust industry

recovery is underway, largely dispelling the validity of most of the notions contained in the report --- notions that provide the underpinnings of the author’s faulty conclusions.

This response contains data and data sources that address the questions above and that can be simply summarized:

• The once-again rising demand for meeting and exhibit space both now and in the future suggests that a glut of convention center space does not exist. For the years 2000-2003 there was a temporary imbalance between facility supply and event demand. The pace of supply expansion has substantially diminished since 2000 while the demand for space is once again accelerating.
• The demand for face-to-face events of all types continues to grow and is expected to become even more robust in the years ahead.

The IAEM (The International Association of Exhibition Management) white paper is available in pdf format at the following URL:
http://www.iaem.org/content/membersonly/downloadablefiles/BrookingsReportCritique.pdf.