The 2022 edition of an annual benchmarking study produced by ICE (In-house Corporate Events) has revealed that UK and European corporate planners are bracing themselves for a 30% hike in the average cost of implementing their MICE programmes, due to spiralling supply-chain prices.
Over 90% of respondents to the ICE research, carried out in association with Cvent, said they had already seen price increases across the five key supplier areas of catering, accommodation, venue hire, production and travel.
On average, in-house planners have seen the biggest increase in catering - with a third of respondents saying their food and beverage costs have risen by 40 - 60% compared to pre-Covid years.
For accommodation, venue and production, over half of the planners surveyed said their costs have gone up by 20 - 40%. At the same time, one in five respondents are experiencing an increase between 40 and 60% to their travel costs.
That said however, as supply-chain prices escalate, in-house resources and average salaries appear to be growing in tandem.
In 2021, there was a predictable, yet noticeable decline in the average size of respondents’ event teams to 16-17 members (from 18-19 in 2020). This year's study indicates they have rebounded with the average size of corporate in-house event teams growing to 19-20 people.
Moreover, in the past 12 months the majority of respondents (57%) stated that their pay had increased as well. The most commonly cited reasons were performance-related and routine company-wide pay reviews.
Interestingly, Head of Events at a blue-chip corporation now earns approximately £79,440 per year. Event Directors are on around £61,880, Event Managers are paid about £47,780 and Event Executives get £39,000 per year on average.
As part of this year’s ICE study, respondents were also asked to report their organisation’s annual spend across hybrid, in-person and virtual-only event types.
Hybrid events have seen the biggest increase in event spend this year with respondents spending 101% more on hybrid events in 2022 versus 2021. In-person event spend is up a whopping 83% on last year, and virtual events have increased by 7%.
A quarter of event planners surveyed felt they were not getting enough data from virtual events and this proportion rose to 29% for hybrid events. However, it is in-person events where planners are most likely to feel that data is lacking (41%).
Over half of respondents said they use event data to decide whether to continue a particular event, make a business case for future budgets, assess how to improve their overall event strategy, and develop future content.
With rising costs and increased event spend, it is unsurprising that planners are using data to help them make more strategic decisions about the events they continue investing in, their overall strategy, future content and also to justify future budgets.
The report also uncovered the key challenges that brands, and their event departments, look to face as we enter 2023 with ‘Sustainability’ (59%), remaining a key challenge.
Using metrics to measure event performance was the second most commonly cited challenge (51%) planners hope to tackle over the next three years, followed by 'Ensuring the consistency of the brand across events' (41%). 'Diversity, Equality & Inclusion' (37%) has also now risen into the top five challenges.
Anita Howard, CEO and Founder of ICE says: “Within the report, there was an undercurrent of concern bought up around flexible working, working from home and mental health resource which shows event professionals taking on greater strain. As the industry gets back into prosperity, we do need to protect our people from burnout and other mental health strain.”
The survey was carried out amongst 51 corporate event planners based primarily in the UK, with 25% based in Europe.
The findings were revealed at Cvent CONNECT Europe, which took place at the Intercontinental - The O2 earlier this month.
