ROI on Travel and Meetings – Why Bother?

Have you noticed a surge of interest in measuring ROI on travel and meeting (T&M) spend?  I’ll get right to the point.  Trying to measure the return on travel or meeting spend is not worth the effort.

It’s like taking a long walk in the desert with a crappy map.  You wouldn’t do it by choice.

I get why suppliers, lobbyists and trade associations want to link spending with a positive economic return, especially in these harsh financial times.  I get why buyers would like some way to measure the ROI of their travel budgets.  And I like numbers  and metrics and quantifying stuff more than most people…so why don’t I like this quest to measure travel ROI?

It’s Impractical

Meetings Analytics – A Much-needed Service

If your firm spends much on meetings and events, you should check out Meetings Analytics.  This young firm does the hard and messy work of gathering, scrubbing and analyzing corporate meeting data, and then analyzes it to identify practical savings opportunities.  You my think (or be told) that you already get meeting data reports from your meeting management tools or travel agencies.  Hah!  These guys are way ahead of those old-school reports.  They report their findings in these key areas: