Tuesday, July 30, 2013

TRENDS IN THE CONFERENCE CENTER INDUSTRY 2013

IACC has released the 2013 Edition of "Trends in the Conference Center Industry" and they are now on sale on the IACC Website at Benchmarking Surveys.

This year's trends report gives clear signs that IACC Conference Centers are experiencing recover and outperforming the broader hotel sector in relation to occupancies and profitability.

Demand for Conference Centers grew and so did average rates, with Executive style Conference Centers performing better than average with an ADR increase of 5% over the previous year. This led to a higher than average rise in rates compared with the hotel industry average in 2012, indicating conference centers are in vogue and the choice of Meeting Planners.

The report, compiled by PKF Hospitality Research on behalf of IACC, showed that Executive Conference Centers enjoyed the greatest gain in occupancy during 2012, growing on average 7.3%. Dave Arnold, CEO of East PKF Consulting commented "Our results this year indicate that a long awaited recovery is taking place for those centers positioned to do so. Corporate meetings have proven to be the last segment of the market to claw back to some semblance of former glory".

There is a saying that 'Turnover is Vanity and Profit is Sanity'. In 2012, IACC Resort Centers achieved the highest profits on a dollars per-available-room basis. On average, Operating Profits increased 14.5% during 2012 and in 2012, Residential Centers enjoyed greater gains in Net Operating Income (NOI) compared to comparable transient hotels.

In 2012, Executive Centers achieved the greatest increase in profit margin, increasing by 27.4%.

Mark Cooper, IACC's CEO commented "With improving margins and greater stability on the marketplace, we expect to see our members investing further in their conference environment for their clients. It will be our aim to provide our members with knowledge, trends and research to help them make the very best choices as they further development their services and facilities".

The PKF Trends report is a valuable resource for any conference center operator and the report also provides valuable insights into financial statistics for salary levels, operating expenses, package breakdowns and revenues. A must for good revenue and cost management. With increasing numbers of non-residential conference centers taking part in the IACC Trends in the Conference Center Industry survey, it contains valuable data for this growing conference center type.

IACC PKF Trends Report 2013Pick up your copy of the 2013 Edition by visiting the IACC Store.