Regional MICE planners look beyond price

The Middle East Buyers Report was released at the on-going GIBTM 2014, which surveyed planners across 10 countries in the Middle East. This report was conducted to gain direct insight into purchasing habits and the decision-making process.

The results highlighted that price alone was not a key driver for regional buyers in the meetings and incentives sector. When regional buyers were asked which features were most important when choosing a venue, price came in fourth place (48%) behind ease of access (61%), Safety and security (52%) and professionalism of staff (52%).

It was a similar response when meeting planners were asked about the least helpful type of behaviour of venue staff. Inflexibility in price negotiation came in fourth position (55%) behind venue changes not communicated (61%), slow staff response (58%) and staff turnover (58%).

“Another interesting statistic was flexibility of meetings space ranked higher than price, when considering which features of a venue were most important to a buyer,” said report author, Rob Davidson, senior lecturer in events management at the University of Greenwich, London.

“Overall the study analysed the preferences of Middle East-based meeting planners in terms of the types of destinations and venues, but also how they wish to interact with sales and marketing professionals that are competing to host those events,” Davidson further added.

Other highlights of the study were that UAE is the leading destination 66% of meeting planners reporting having held meetings there in the last two years. Outside of the region, approximately 70% planners said that they had selected European destinations such as France, Spain, Austria, Italy and Turkey respectively. Almost 50% of respondents have also held events in Asian countries, with Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka the top three ranked destinations.