The art of hosting a meeting

More than 6,000 people attend a conference on investment held by the Anhui provincial government in late December 2010. Industry insiders say the top-three organizers of meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions had more than 79 million euros each in revenue last year. Zhang Yanlin / for China Daily

Events that make the eyes sparkle

When Citibank held a meeting to expand its business in Shanxi province last year, it was no easy task to impress the guests, all of whom were local bank directors from a region made prosperous mostly by its coal mine industry.

The meeting's organizer, HRH Communications Group, based the event on the theme of the ancient merchants in the northern province, an idea it followed down to incorporating historical banknote patterns in the design of the invitations.

"These guests have seen everything. You have to give them something that is both personally relevant and impressive," says Anna Cao, general manager at HRH Communications Group, which provides event solutions for companies operating in China.

Organizing business meetings and events takes more than providing a few chairs, a whiteboard and tea. And organizers have grown rapidly. Industry insiders say the top-three organizers of meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions had more than 700 million yuan (79 million euros) each in revenue last year. The total revenue for the top 10 was up to 3.5 billion yuan to 4.5 billion yuan.

"Our revenue increased 90 percent last year," says Cao, whose company handled about 1,500 projects in 2010. "Our schedule has been full. We are booked solid to February. We forecast growth of 30 to 50 percent this year."

Comfort MICE Service, a leader in meeting organization in China, also sees its business expanding. "Our revenue grew 100 percent last year," says David Chen, general manager of the company, which was created in 2008 by its parent company, the Comfort Travel Group.

Training and promotional events make up 99 percent of all meetings, the rest being annual conferences. But those annual meetings account for 10 -30 percent of the company's revenue, Chen says.

The scale of the meetings is getting larger and more complicated. "Enterprises in China are growing so fast and the demand for meetings is growing along with them," says Chen, whose customers come mainly from the finance, automobile, information technology and retail industries.

Last year, Chen's company organized a convention for 6,000 people and arranged another that included 300 smaller meetings.

The growing scale of meetings has challenged organizers. "You cannot simply assign more people. It would only fuel the cost, lower the efficiency and increase the errors," Chen says.

Investing more in high technology and human resources is the solution to streamlining operations, managing information and putting it all together, he says. The secret to survival in the meetings and events industry is being professional and creative, he adds.

"To provide services is merely the beginning. You have to understand your client's corporate culture to a degree so that you can generate the best ideas and make their eyes sparkle," Cao says.

For a meeting to help IBM recruit graduates from the top universities in China, HRH Communications used a giant screen at a campus theater to show students a movie-like video with a high-tech presentation. "It won over the audience immediately. The event was so impressive, some of the students said they wanted to work for the employer forever," she says.

Despite the surge in meetings requests, budgets for events have not necessarily risen, creating challenges for meeting solution providers. In large-scale events, the meeting organizers which are most competitive with capital, technology and creativity will stand out, Chen says.