More than half (53 percent) of business travel buyers are now responsible for meetings spend, yet 55 percent still don’t have a strategic meetings management policies in place, according to a survey of 350 business travel buyers by the Business Travel & Meetings Show (Feb. 8-9 in London). 

The show offers three sessions focused specifically on the meetings market, including a case study that specifically address this low adoption of strategic meetings management programs (SMMP). Sam Welch, head of account management for BSI and Danielle Bartlett, group travel buying manager for Tesco will help buyers develop a framework for implementing an SMMP. 

A second case study will feature Gareth Crowder, head of procurement for Zibrant, who will discuss "Optimizing Savings and Controlling Costs in your Meetings and Event Program." He will be followed by Derick Shaw, business services manager for Aviva UK, with "Harness the Latest Tools and Technologies to Exact Maximum Cost Savings in your Meeting Spend." 

The buyer-only meetings masterclass – entitled Become a Meeting Planning Hero! – is being moderatedby Peter Haigh, a consultant with Hamilton Haigh Associates. He will show buyers how to use a meeting planning and evaluation tool to measure the impact and effectiveness of meetings and events and unveil his ROI methodology, which involves five levels of measurement.