It's Holiday Party Time

As the year-end holidays approach, many meeting planners have been working feverishly on employee parties. M&C surveyed planners in October to find out about their involvement with those events.  
    Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the 216 respondents said their organizations do host a holiday event; of those, 72 percent said the task of planning it falls to their departments. Of those whose firms don’t have a party, 55 percent reported they have never had one, 27 percent said the party was discontinued within the past five years and 18 percent said the year-end celebration was eliminated more than five years ago. 
    One respondent said the organization’s employees had voted to send the money budgeted for the year-end party to a fund benefiting co-workers affected by Hurricane Katrina.
    Where will the shindigs take place? This year, 74 percent of respondents will go to an off-site venue, 14 percent will stay at the office and 7 percent will celebrate the holidays in someone’s home. 
    A dinner party is the most popular choice for the holiday event this year (cited by 46 percent), followed by lunch (29 percent) and cocktail parties (24 percent). A slim 1 percent said the holiday party will be a breakfast.
A plurality of companies (25 percent) budget $31 to $45 per person for the gathering, while 20 percent set aside $21 to $30. That cost has stayed the same since last year for 69 percent of the respondents.
    Almost half those surveyed (46 percent) said attendees also will receive a holiday gift; 30 percent of the gift givers said the presents will cost more than $30 each, while 25 percent will spend $6 to $10 per person.