Despite rising occupancy rates, most show organizers don’t seem to be having trouble finding enough hotel rooms, according to the 220 show organizers who responded to an online survey conducted by EXPO Magazine and Exhibit Surveys Inc. in May 2006. In fact, only 19 percent say they’re having trouble finding enough hotel rooms.

In 2007, 69 percent of show organizers are expecting room rates to increase  — an average of 6 percent. Thirty percent expect rates to stay about the same, and only 1 percent expect a decrease.

Show organizers report that 20 percent of attendees booked outside the block at their last show, but the percentage seems to be leveling off. Sixty-four percent of show organizers report the percentage is unchanged from the previous show, while 23 percent report an increase in the number who booked outside the block and 13 percent say it decreased.

Sidebar: More on expoweb.com
Find exclusive Web-only content from this survey, including:

Housing trends by event type
Association

Average Room Rate
Up to $100 -- 11%
$101 to $125 -- 9%
$126 to $150 -- 23%
$151 to $175 -- 20%
$176 to $200 -- 27%
More than $200 -- 10%

Expected Room Rate Change in 2007
Increase -- 69%
Decrease -- 1%
Stay the Same -- 30%

Average Expected increase in Room Rates
 6%

Average % Booked Outside the block
 17%

Change in Booked Outside Rate
Increase -- 21%
Decrease -- 11%
No Change -- 68%

Having Trouble Finding Enough Rooms?
Yes -- 15%
No -- 85%

How Housing Handled
In-house -- 23%
Third-party housing company -- 43%
CVB housing services -- 15%
Other -- 20%

Attrition Clause in Contracts
Yes -- 64%
No -- 36%

Hotel Contract Timeframe
One year -- 29%
Two years -- 32%
3 to 5 years -- 33%
6 to 10 years -- 4%
More than 10 years -- 1%

For-profit
Average Room Rate
Up to $100 -- 11%
$101 to $125 -- 12%
$126 to $150 -- 25%
$151 to $175 -- 24%
$176 to $200 -- 19%
More than $200 -- 9%

Expected Room Rate Change in 2007
Increase -- 70%
Decrease -- 4%
Stay the Same -- 26%

Average Expected increase in Room Rates
 6%

Average % Booked Outside
 23%

Change in Booked Outside Rate
Increase -- 26%
Decrease -- 14%
No Change -- 60%

Having Trouble Finding Enough Rooms?
Yes -- 22%
No -- 78%

How Housing Handled
In-house -- 35%
Third-party housing company -- 49%
CVB housing services -- 4%
Other -- 12%

Attrition Clause in Contracts
Yes -- 54%
No -- 46%

Hotel Contract Timeframe
One year -- 64%
Two years -- 23%
3 to 5 years -- 10%
6 to 10 years -- 1%
More than 10 years -- 1%

Housing trends by event revenue

Shows with gross revenue of less than $2 million
Average Room Rate
Up to $100 -- 18%
$101 to $125 -- 16%
$126 to $150 -- 23%
$151 to $175 -- 23%
$176 to $200 -- 13%
More than $200 -- 7%

Expected Room Rate Change in 2007
Increase -- 70%
Decrease -- 2%
Stay the Same -- 28%

Average Expected increase in Room Rates
 7%

Average % Booked Outside
 14%

Change in Booked Outside Rate
Increase -- 20%
Decrease -- 13%
No Change -- 67%

Having Trouble Finding Enough Rooms?
Yes -- 17%
No -- 83%

How Housing Handled
In-house -- 47%
Third-party housing company -- 27%
CVB housing services -- 8%
Other -- 18%

Attrition Clause in Contracts
Yes -- 65%
No -- 35%

Hotel Contract Timeframe
One year -- 53%
Two years -- 26%
3 to 5 years -- 16%
6 to 10 years -- 2%
More than 10 years -- 2%

Shows with gross revenue of more than $2 million

Average Room Rate
Up to $100 -- 4%
$101 to $125 -- 5%
$126 to $150 -- 24%
$151 to $175 -- 18%
$176 to $200 -- 36%
More than $200 -- 13%

Expected Room Rate Change in 2007
Increase -- 68%
Decrease -- 3%
Stay the Same -- 30%

Average Expected increase in Room Rates
 6%

Average % Booked Outside
 28%

Change in Booked Outside Rate
Increase -- 27%
Decrease -- 13%
No Change -- 61%

Having Trouble Finding Enough Rooms?
Yes -- 20%
No -- 80%

How Housing Handled
In-house -- 11%
Third-party housing company -- 65%
CVB housing services -- 12%
Other -- 12%

Attrition Clause in Contracts
Yes -- 54%
No -- 46%

Hotel Contract Timeframe
One year -- 44%
Two years -- 27%
3 to 5 years -- 26%
6 to 10 years -- 3%
More than 10 years -- 0%

Profile of respondents

Organization Type
Trade association/society/not-for-profit -- 47%
Independent/For-profit convention/trade show/meeting owner/producer/planner -- 45%
Corporate event management -- 8%

Total Gross Revenue
$500,000 or less -- 20%
$500,001 - $1,000,000 -- 18%
$1,000,001 - $2,000,000 -- 16%
$2,000,001 - $3,000,000 -- 8%
$3,000,001 - $5,000,000 -- 13%
More than $5,000,000 -- 25%

Required Exhibit Space (Sq. Ft.)
Less than 25,000 -- 3%
25,001 to 50,000 -- 18%
50,001 to 100,000 -- 16%
100,001 to 250,000 -- 21%
250,001 to 500,000 -- 13%
More than 500,000 -- 18%

Average Attendees
22,180

Average Peak Room Pickup
2,782

Verbatim responses on show organizers' biggest frustration with housing
After the show having to call hotels after 30 days for commissions due to the company.
As a producer of consumer shows, we constantly have to battle CVB's who want the venues to give our dates away to trade shows so they can book more room nights than we are able to deliver.
Attendees and exhibitors booking rooms outside the block, especially with online services.
Attendees changing arrival/departure dates close to show
Attendees leaving early
Attendees who want to stay at a hotel we are not using
Attrition
Attrition clauses rates increasing over 5%
Attrition clauses which are hard to avoid when hotels offer discounted rates online
Attrition rates, non-negotiables with hotels, everything in favor of the hotel and not the customer (me)
Attrition requests, f & b mini.
Attrition. I'm launching new events and room pickup is a real unknown with new business. I would love to see the hotels share the risk more with the organizer. Attrition covers most of their risk placing it squarely on the shoulders of the organizer. It was interesting when it was a buyers market after September of 2001 how quickly attrition was waived for them to get business.
Availability
Booking outside housing block. On-line rates often cheaper that convention block rates.
Citywide shows don't have much negotiating leverage with hotels.
Collecting commissions and shuttle bus rebates in a timely manner. Also the undercutting of the rate on the web.
Continual increase in cost of rooms. Tremendous increase in cost overall; well above the ecomony as a whole. Tendency of hotels to place "deluxe" hotels in cities which compete with other "deluxe" hotels, rather than building large hotels with reasonable prices. Duplicating the folly of the automobile companies.
Contract language and unfair venue expectations
Cooperation of the attendees to get information in.
Cost
Cut off dates too far from show open date to accommodate the increasing number of attendees who make their decision to attend an event in the last 2-3 weeks
Exhibitors who take large blocks and cancel later.  Attendees get shut out of the major hotels and book further away, but the major hotels end up with lots of slippage once the exhibitors reduce their blocks.  Since they only pay the one day penalty, it's worth it for them to overbook.
Finalizing invoices and payment of transportation rebates.
Finding enough rooms close enough to the convention center
Finding space at a good rate.
Finding venue with enough sleeping rooms and meeting space
Finding venues that can hold the bulk of our group and our meeting/expo needs.
Getting a consistant rate.
Getting all exhibitors and attendees who need hotel bedrooms to book inside the block.
getting attendees to book in our block so we use all of the rooms/avoid attrition fees
Getting credit for all of the rooms
Getting exhibitors and attendees to understand the relationship of good dates to pick-up.
Getting exhibitors to book at hotel.  Dealing with complex hotel contracts that are alway one sided and fairly ridgid considering the business we bring.
Getting exhibitors to stay in our room block.
Getting people in the rooms they requested.
Handling the "gap" time between the cut-off and the reservations getting into the hotels' system.
Having an initial contact at the hotel.
Having hotels work with us to meld meeting space requirements with our sleeping room needs, especially since our sleeping room needs don't fit the typical model (we draw heavily from the local community and therefore, don't have major room pickups for our events).
High cost.
Hotel reservation departments that give the callers erroneous information about the status of rooms availability.
Hotels not wanting to honor our request for them to oversell by 10%.
Hotels not wanting to supply complimentary shuttle services due to increase in gas prices.
Hotels that accept pets
Hotels that can't import rooming lists into their system directly from our spreadsheet.
Increase rates and attending booking around the block with third parties.
Increasing hotel room rates.
Increasing meeting room rental costs (even with large room blocks) and increasing room rates.
Internet Rates and too many hotels in our area to attract a good pick up at any one hotel.  Customers are so spread out we cannot get a good show count.
Keeping attendees within the block at the official hotel and booking outside the official block; tracking of attendees; last minute rooms
Lack of 4 star hotels around the exhibition center.
Lack of available hotel rooms in proximity to the convention location.
Lack of suitable rooms.
Las Vegas is getting tougher and tougher. They want conference business and they don't. With so few companies to work with we no longer have an opportunity to negotiate.
Meeting room block.
Members reserving rooms they do not use(and cancelling at the last week), thus not allowing their peers the opporunity to stay in the headquarters hotel
Mistakes from housing company - not only for attendees but for staff members
Negotiating room rate that remains the same throughout booking + negotiating original REASONABLE room rate.
No shows,  early check out
None -- it's not a big deal for our shows
None.
Not a concern.
Not being taken for granted. This is a city-wide show and the hotels know they'll get the business.
Not enough hotels in close proximity to convention centers with a sufficient amount of rooms available to us.
Not getting enough rooms
Not respecting the block when taking reservations.
Not wanting to work with small room blocks
Our conference rates are higher because the cost of exhibit and meeting space is waived.  Rates fall as we get closer to the Conference date and often times, the hotel is offering rates significantly lower than our conference rate.  Attrition is a killer.
Our show is in New York and the market is booming.  Not only is it hard to find rooms, but the prices are very high.
Outside block booking, competing with internet consolidators, fighting for rates when there is "bait-and-switch" pricing announced elsewhere.
Outside blocks
Overbooking rooms and last minute cancellations after cutt off date
People staying outside the block.
Price
Qualified help to answer a phone.
Quality
Quality, full-service hotel with reasonable rates, no attrition clause & lenient cancellation policy.
Rates
Room rates
room rates and availability along with being self contained in hotel property instead of using both hotel and convention center
Room rates.
Sellers market
Selling 100% of the available block
Service
Some time availablity
Space
Space to guest rooms used ratio
The arrogance of hotels with attrition, and charges for every little small thing.
The attrition clauses
The hotel industry has changed the relationship with exhibition producers from customer to supplier of hotel rooms.
The internet, and getting credit for rooms generated
The room rates & no attrition contracts.  Hotels are still taking reservations over our dates at a lower rate via the Internet.
Too easy for attendees and exhibitors to book outside of the block where they are often able to find lower rates.
Too expensive, competitiion from internet sites
Too few hotels
Tracking it to registration now that we no longer require them to be registered to book hotel accommodations.
Try to maintain certain hotels booked.
Trying to get the CVBs to recognize rooms picked-up outside the block via our internal attende surveys.
Unreasonably high room rates encouraging attendees to book outside the block/via online discount hotel suppliers resulting in hotelier disappointment with  offical show block pick-up and refusal to give credit and pay commission on these obvious show related bookings.
Verifying pick-up of attendees outside the block and CVB's out-moded methods of tying room pick-up to convention center space allocation.
VIP Blocks
We do not do central booking - our attendees book directly. The bigest challenge is rate inflation and minimum night clauses instituted specifically for my event.
We produce consumer shows and locking in dates in top markets is our biggest challenge. Your survey obviously is intended for trade show produces as it deals mostly with room blocks.
We will not sign a contract with an attrition clause, it is hard to negotiate this out of a standard contract - few properties are willing.
We will sign contracts 10 years out if the rate is negotiated without a percentage increase for each year..a confirmed rate.  Even with doing that and thinking the rates were great the other hotels in town will undercut our rates and their neighbor hotel.  Why don't cities work together better.My rates are always under 200 and when it comes time for the meeting the hotels that are not in the block will lower the rates down below $139.  That is not working together!
We work with the Radisson and we have no problem at all.
With such a large room block, it sometime proves difficult to ascertain the quality in all the hotels ... from the 1 starts to the 5 stars.