Most in the hotel and meeting industry are looking forward to the end of 2009, so they can quickly forget it.
This year has seen cancellations of meetings and smaller conventions as companies and people cut back on spending.
But most expect 2010 to be better than 2009, thanks to large annual conventions that are holding up, positive attendance projections for events and an upswing in short-term, smaller meetings.
The number of citywide conventions using multiple hotels for 2010 is on par with 2009 with 43 on the books,compared with 42 on the books in 2009. Attendance projections for the remaining 2009 conventions also are on par with 2008, which had 42 citywide conventions.
Of the 43 conventions booked for 2010, 21 of them are expected to bring 10,000-plus people to the area. As usual, nine of the big events are scheduled in the first quarter.
Conventions planned for 2010 include the annual International Music Product Association’s NAMM Show,Anaheim’s largest,as well as the Natural Products Expo West and Walt Disney’s D23 Expo, a convention for Disney fans.
While conventions are holding up relatively well, some exhibitors are taking smaller booth spaces.
But they still are reaching large audiences as attendance at local shows has been up so far this year, attracting 670,000 people, compared to 600,000 a year earlier, according to Abel.
The attendance growth largely has been spread out among the veteran shows. NAMM, which is held annually, saw a 3% to 5% increase in attendees early this year.
Market watchers aren’t expecting to see any huge spikes or dips in attendance.
“We haven’t seen any groups coming in at 50% or any other dramatic downturns for next year,” said Mindy Abel, senior vice president of convention sales with the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau.
Most within the industry are expecting 2010 to be a slow climb as a few conventions still are left to be booked for the end of next year. Most meetings are booked a year to a year and a half in advance.
“I think we’ll still be seeing the after effects of 2009 next year,” said Brad Logsdon, director of sales and marketing at the 1,500-room Hilton Anaheim. “Next year’s (slow bookings) seem almost like a hangover from 2009.”
The party began to wane for the meeting industry late last year as planned meetings were canceled and fewer rooms were booked for those that were held.
“Meetings are sill happening, although they are more conservative in their approach, location and size,” said Abel.
In 2009, most of Anaheim’s hotels saw meeting booking down 20% from 2008. The uncertainty in the economy is keeping a lot of meeting planners on the sidelines, waiting much longer than usual to plan events.
“The last things on people’s minds have been finding contracts with hotels for meetings when they’re not even sure if their company is going to be in existence next year,” Logsdon said.
Corporate meetings have fallen off for most venues in Anaheim and around the county as businesses have slashed meeting budgets because of cost and image concerns.
“Corporate meeting planners are being more fiscally conservative this year by picking locations that are more meeting-focused versus what might be a perception of not as meeting-focused,” Abel said (see story, page 21).
Corporate meetings still are happening, but they are smaller, low-key events, according to many in the industry.
“People have engineered their meetings a little bit more strategically given the economic climate,” said Steve Pufpaf, director of sales and marketing at the Anaheim Marriott. “In 2009 it was sort of they were learning things at the beginning of the year as they went,”
Big Fan Events
Some big events happening this year and next should help.
Major League Baseball’s 2010 All-Star Game is coming to Angel Stadium of Anaheim next July.
The game looks set to put a lot of people in the city’s hotel rooms. Not just the hotels stand to benefit,the convention center is holding a fan fest for the people drawn to the midseason exhibition game.
“That’s going to be a winner and a boon for our hotel and others,” said Robert Donahue, director of groups and conventions for the Disneyland Resort, the Walt Disney Co. unit that runs the company’s Anaheim theme parks and hotels. “I think it will be a major feather in the cap for the city to showcase the All-Star Game here and great for business as well.”
Two years ago, when the All-Star Game was held in New York, it brought nearly $150 million in business to the city.
Even in the midst of the downturn, the game brought an estimated $60 million to St. Louis this year.
“We’re looking to have a triple-digit number if possible given our proximity to the greater Los Angeles area,” said Thomas Morton, convention center, sports and entertainment executive director for the city of Anaheim.
The city is getting a boost from some other big fan events slated for this year, according to Morton. Those include this month’s BlizzCon 2009 put on by Irvine-based Blizzard Entertainment Inc. and Disney’s first D23 Expo in September.
BlizzCon, the two-day event showcasing the game maker’s online worlds, will take four floors at the Anaheim Convention Center, up from the three conventions halls it occupied last year. This year, the 20,000 tickets for the event sold out in minutes.
The four-day D23 Expo is expected to host industry speakers, celebrities and characters that should help bring Disney fans to the park’s hometown.
Long-time Shows
Anaheim also is benefiting from its longtime events that have stayed local.
The NAMM Show signed a three-year deal with Anaheim to continue to host the music products show through 2013.
The show pulled in more than 85,000 attendees this year and generates an estimated economic impact of $75 million annually. The show,one of the city’s largest events,has been hosted in Anaheim for more than 30 years.
The convention center is working on securing similar multiyear agreements with other upcoming events.
“The focus is on the customer service and making sure when (conventions) leave that they want to come back,” Morton said.
That focus on customer service also is apparent on the hotel side as more offer concessions and bonuses to bring in smaller meetings.
For many planners, the better part of this year has been spent working on existing contracts where companies may not be able to fulfill their end of the contracted rooms or attendees.
“The first part of this year was spent renegotiating existing contracts that we already had on the books, most placed six or seven years ago,” said Logsdon of the Hilton Anaheim.
The Hilton Anaheim is expecting to be down 25,000 to 30,000 room nights in 2010 in group business compared to this year.
“We’re down about 20% in our booking position (for 2010) from 2009 due to a lot of the reshuffling and reorganization of the markets that took place in 2009 that has impacted their ability to commit to contracts for 2010,” Logsdon said.
The Hilton Anaheim is in line with many of the other area hotels, which saw cancellations and companies infrequently booking all of the rooms they reserved.
In addition to renegotiating existing contracts, conference and meetings planners are waiting longer and booking more last-minute meetings to take advantage of better deals. They also are booking shorter stays and fewer team-building activities to save money.
This has made it tougher on local hotels to plan their own spending because they aren’t able to forecast business.
“Business has been good, but we measure that on a weekly basis now,” said Donahue of the Disneyland Resort. “We had a good week,that’s what you have to say.”
Along with short-term meeting events, the market for meetings and conferences more than a few years out has stalled due to planners taking more time to sign contracts.
“The event is coming but groups and clients are signing contracts closer to the event date and that’s because the decision making is a little slower nowadays,” said Donahue. “The decision makers are taking more time to think it through.”
Overall, groups that meet in Anaheim in years past are broadening their search to coastal hotel properties or other big cities, due to the decline in rates.
“They are looking at the coast properties be-cause they are seeing rates that they weren’t able to get in the past,” Abel said.
Conventions al-so are looking be-yond Anaheim.
Competition is heating up among the major convention cities including Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., which have seen steep declines in convention business.
“We have seen other destinations providing incentive packages that have been far better than the norm,” Morton said.
