At last month’s IMEX Frankfurt Inspiration Centre, Development Counsellors International (DCI) and International Association of Conference Centers (IACC) presented the findings of a recent study of meeting planners living and working in Europe entitled “Exploring the Generational Preferences of European Meeting Planners.”
Conducted in partnership with IMEX Group, the study explored the varying preferences of different generations of meeting planners and how these preferences shape how meeting and conference space is selected. For the purpose of this study, generations were defined as: Mature (age 66 and older), Baby Boomer (age 47-65), Generation X (age 33-46) and Millennials (age 18-32).
“In delivering this year’s survey to IMEX delegates,” IACC CEO Mark Cooper noted, “meeting room design innovations throughout IACC’s 350 conference centers…in 19 countries were creating increasingly more innovative meeting room designs to meet the expectations of Gen X and Millennial delegates.”
The survey revealed that open space, moveable furniture and informal set up are meeting room characteristics that European meeting planners indicate as ‘most important’.”