Meeting Professionals International (MPI) released its annual Business Barometer and expects a 0.7 per cent increase in budgets and a 2.6 per cent increase in event revenue in Europe over the next 12 months.

The report also highlighted there would be a two per cent increase in delegate attendees, a 3.2 per cent increase in the number of meetings, and an average reduction of one hour in the length of those meetings. European meetings stayed at home in 2012, the report stated, with 69 per cent remaining in Europe, up from 63 per cent in 2011 and 36 per cent in 2010.

The report showed a difference in gender salaries, with female European planners on average now earning £42,612, while male planners now earned on average £64,769, with this distinction even more marked with suppliers, with male suppliers earning on average £77,173, or more than 97 per cent more than female suppliers, who now earn in average £39,095.

The barometer also saw that “the organisations anticipating the greatest increase in meeting-generated revenue are the very least interested in solutions that provide alternatives to live meetings…[and that] companies that have the highest percentage of revenue generating events are most interested in technologies that provide ‘better feedback from attendees about the meeting experience,’ ‘improve identification and tracking of meetings and events,’ ‘social networking tools to supplement events,’ ‘co-create/customise products and services with meeting attendees’ and ‘improve payment systems for expense tracking purposes.’”

Of the 1,277 MPI members questioned in July, 528 are planners, 527 are suppliers and 135 had both roles. Three-quarters of respondents were based in the US, while 10 per cent hailed from Europe.

The full report is available at www.mpiweb.org