Meeting planners, convention planners, and event planners earnings & training

Meeting and Convention Planners

Planners often work long hours in the period prior to and during a meeting or convention, and extensive travel may be required.
Employment is expected to grow faster than average.
Opportunities will be best for individuals with a bachelor's degree and some meeting planning experience.

Job Outlook

Employment of meeting and convention planners is expected to grow faster than the average for all occupations over the 2004-14 period, due to growth of business, the increasing globalization of the economy, and increasing use of electronic forms of communication to bring people together.

There will also be some job openings that arise due to the need to replace workers who leave the workforce or transfer to other occupations. Opportunities will be best for individuals with a bachelor's degree and some meeting planning experience.

As businesses and organizations become increasingly international, meetings and conventions become even more important. In organizations that span the country or the globe, the periodic meeting is increasingly the only time the organization can bring all of its members together. Despite the proliferation of alternative forms of communication, such as e-mail, videoconferencing, and the Web, face-to-face interaction is still a necessity. In fact, new forms of communication foster interaction and connect individuals and groups that previously would not have collaborated. By increasing the number of human connections, electronic forms of communication actually increase the demand for meetings, which may offer the only opportunity for these people to interact in person.

Industries that are experiencing high growth tend to experience corresponding growth in meetings and conferences. For example, the medical and pharmaceutical sectors in particular, because of their high growth and their knowledge-intensive natures, will experience large increases in meeting activity. However, these increases will spur employment growth of meeting professionals in medical and pharmaceutical associations rather than in the industries directly. Professional associations hold conferences and conventions that offer the continuing education, training, and opportunities to exchange ideas that are vital to medical and pharmaceutical professionals. Unlike workers in some occupations, meeting and convention planners can often change industries relatively easily, so they often are able to move to different industries in response to the growth or declines in particular sectors of the economy.

Partly because of bioterrorism and homeland security issues, Government agencies are now holding more meetings than ever. Private security and insurance companies also have increased their meeting activity. Because the Government increasingly outsources its non-core functions, this increased activity may spur demand for independent meeting consultants or workers in private meeting planning firms rather than increasing employment of Government meeting planners.

Demand for corporate meeting planners is highly susceptible to business cycle fluctuations since meetings are usually among the first expenses to be cut when budgets are tight. For associations, fluctuations are less pronounced because meetings are generally a source of revenue rather than an expense. However, since fewer people are able to attend association meetings during recessions, associations often reduce their meeting staffs as well. Associations for industries such as health care, in which meeting attendance is required for professionals to maintain their licensure, are the least likely to experience cutbacks during downturns in the economy.

Source:

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-07 Edition, Meeting and Convention Planners, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos298.htm (visited August 20, 2006).