September 2004
Special Report: ExPact2004 Convention Expenditure & Impact Study

Find out how much exhibitors, attendees and other event organizers spend in the host city. Use the data to determine the economic impact of your event and benchmark your spending against the average

By Danica Tormohlen

Convention delegates spend an average of $266 per day or $945 per event, for an average stay of 3.6 nights, according to the recently released ExPact2004 Convention Expenditure & Impact Study, conducted by the International Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus (IACVB).
“ExPact2004 shows that delegate expenditures have increased 36 percent, or 15 percent a day, since 1998,” says Melvin Tennant, Executive Director of the San Antonio CVB and Chair of the IACVB Board of Directors. “While the industry is not recession-proof or terrorism-proof, these numbers are strong. Face-to-face meetings and events — where new ideas and products are discussed — are necessary, and the tourism industry will continue to be a significant economic driver for destinations around the world.”

ExPact2004 demonstrates the monetary impact of the meetings, conventions and exhibitions industry. Designed to calculate and capture direct expenditures per event, the project surveyed delegates, exhibitors and event organizers to determine how much money is spent in host venues. Show organizers can use the numbers to determine the economic impact of their events in the host city, as well as benchmark their spending in the host city against the average.

“ExPact2004 provides organizers with consistent, credible spending figures to use when expounding on the value of their event,” says Tennant.

Among the key findings:

• Approximately 90 percent of the events surveyed have an exhibition component, with an average of 278 exhibiting companies per event, and the average exhibit lasting 3.77 days. Exhibitors spend an average of $3,125 on exhibit space.

• For the average event, delegates stay in a designated hotel 81 percent of the time. Of those delegates staying in the designated hotel, 85 percent took advantage of the negotiated conference rate. Delegates are more likely to book outside the block for large market events (22.3 percent) vs. the average event (19.1 percent).

• Just over 80 percent of delegates stay in either hotels (75.1 percent) or motels (5.1 percent) when attending conventions and trade shows. Just under 19 percent of delegates don’t contribute any lodging expenditures to the local economy, by either staying with friends or relatives (6.9 percent) or by commuting daily to the event from home (11.8 percent).

To order a copy of the report, contact IACVB at 202-296-7888 or visit www.iacvb.org/.