Face-to-face meetings held during 2009 directly contributed more than US$263 billion to the United States economy, according to a study released by the Convention Industry Council last week.
Furthermore, the total economic output of those meetings, including direct spending and multiplier effects, was more than US$907 billion in U.S. economic activity.
The findings were announced Thursday during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The study, which comprises results from approximately 6,000 respondents, was conducted to quantify the economic significance of the U.S. meetings industry—something severely lacking when the sector became a scapegoat during the early days of the global recession.
“We can’t find ourselves in the position we did two years ago where no one understood the value of this industry,” said Deborah Sexton, president and CEO of the Professional Convention Management Association, which was one of 15 associations and groups that contributed to the study.
“We as an industry organization and as an industry itself took for granted the fact that we thought face-to-face meetings were of value,” added John H. Graham, president and CEO of the American Society of Association Executives. The industry was wrong and was caught off guard, he added before underlying the need to educate Congress and the general public about the true value of face-to-face meetings.
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