According to findings from Carlson Wagonlit Travel, the most critical factor for measuring the success of an event will be finding cost effective ways to manage the event without sacrificing impact. In other words, senior managers will be looking for bottom line savings as well as a healthy return on the event investment. However, according to CWT’s Fay Beauchine, “Research shows that 80% of corporate executives think that ROI is important but less than 50 percent of them are actually doing it [measurement]. The ones who are doing it are all over the board, from trying to measure costs (meeting the budget) to client satisfaction(event feedback forms.” Beauchine, a board member for Site Global, has also helped deliver the findings from the Site Index, which this year has focused on return on investment (ROI) and return on objectives (ROO). To hear more about this study, click here: http://meetingsreview.com/clients/imex/2010/index.php?target=17.php

Although the current state of efforts to manage ROI is confusing, organizations and associations are more routinely setting goals and objectives for their event programs so that they can prove that events do provide value.