Planning for the New Demographic

Charles Darwin wrote of evolution: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one that is most adaptable to change.” To apply that quote to organizers of face-to-face events in the United States, one of the most pressing changes to which they must adapt is the radical remaking of the American population.
    When the Census Bureau last measured the number of inhabitants, in 2000, the 32.7 million increase was the largest 10-year jump in history (13 percent). It was an even bigger increase than the baby boom decade of 1950 to 1960. Further, between 1990 and 2000, the foreign-born population of the United States leapt from 19.8 million to 31.1 million. This means there’s an increasing likelihood that participants at U.S. events were born in another country, even though they are now U.S. residents (or, like 40 percent of those born elsewhere, American citizens). 
    A good grasp of populations and people is vital to the meetings trade. Demographics lend meeting planners situational awareness: the power to understand, attract and better serve attendees in an ever-shifting marketplace of people and their evolving cultural and ethnic makeup. Analysis of who attendees and potential attendees are and where they come from can help a planner to effectively locate and market an event, hire speakers, plan menus and reach out to the right community organizations. 
    “You want to know your customer,” says Dr. Lalia Rach, Ed.D., associate dean and HVS international chair at the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University. “You want to know your potential participants, suppliers and sponsors. As a meeting planner, you have multiple audiences, and you need to know as much about each group as you can.”
    Indeed, to survive with the fittest, planners must be alert to demographic trends. As we begin a new year, M&C examines these changes and their bearing on meetings.

The need to know members
Today, with approximately 286 million people, the United States stands as the world’s third most populous country after China and India. In the next 25 years, America is expected to experience a 23 percent increase a big jump for an industrialized nation.
    This population rise gives the United States, and meetings businesses here, an edge over nations with decreasing populations. “As a meeting planner, you have more people and more potential attendees,” says Chris Pentz, CMP, president of Pentz Group Communications in Philadelphia which brings an increasing need to tailor events to achieve maximum inclusiveness. To do this, experts say, it is important to first know as much about your membership as you can. 
    “Have a membership poll and try to get more demographic information so you can better understand the cultural environment,” suggests Karen M. Gonzales, CMP, managing director of Meeting Professionals International’s Multicultural Initiative, established to build meetings industry relationships with diverse groups. “Ask about race, ethnicity, nationality and origin of birth, but make it optional and confidential. It allows your members to tell you who they are. If you’re organizing a trade show, you can do it during the registration process. You may only get a certain percentage of responses, but usually people who have specific needs, or want to be understood for their culture and how it works, will want to be recognized.” 
    MPI followed its own advice and polled 1,743 meeting planner members about their ethnicity. The results showed planners themselves are increasingly diverse, coming from many nations and races; indeed, respondents were born in 61 different countries. Of meeting planners in the United States, 66 percent self-identified as Caucasian, 9 percent as African American, 5 percent as Hispanic, 2 percent as Asian and 2 percent as Jewish.
    Asked to rank the importance of services and practices to the success of multicultural meetings, these planners emphasized:
    " Speaker presentation; 
    " Awareness of customs/traditions;
    " Awareness of dietary requirements;
    " Cultural education and awareness training for organizations;
    " Understanding of regional cultural differences, and
    " Understanding of international cultural differences.

Reaching out
Two themes common among experts in diversity and multicultural inclusiveness are outreach and representation: “You have to look at it internally and externally,” says MPI’s Gonzales. “Internally, we need to ask: “Why do we want outreach to diverse communities?” The answer: because of untapped growing markets and because we feel perhaps we don’t have enough representation. So look inside and ask, ‘Who do we have already in our membership who can reach out? What are we doing to build relationships, strategic alliances?’ Then you need to reach into communities and form bonds before you can start saying, ‘Hi, I want your business!’ That’s not good customer service. Invite them to the table first.”
    Planners of trade shows, conventions and events could, for instance, contact chambers of commerce or business associations for African-American, Asian, Hispanic and other communities in major American cities. Indeed, many in the meetings world are now taking proactive steps to make business-to-business contacts between divergent ethnic and racial groups. 
    “Through our local MPI chapter, we’re hooking up with the Asian, African-American and Hispanic communities within Houston,” says Lisa S. Davis, national account manager with Conference Direct, a third-party planning firm based in Los Angeles. “I think it’s really exciting and long overdue in our industry. It’s about forming business contacts and broadening our cultural horizons.”
    Promoting diversity among staff and within a leadership structure is another important way organizations can be more inclusive as well as more effective at diversifying a customer base. 
    “It is important to show a change from the top,” says Horacio Gavilan, executive director of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies. “You have to set the tone with diverse board members listed, where ethnic customers can see they are represented within a group. Diversity creates a connection and makes people pay attention.”
    “Make sure leadership, staff and the executive team reflect the market you’re going after,” echoes MPI’s Gonzales. “It’s hard to say ‘be a part of our organization’ if your leadership is 99.9 percent Caucasian. The same goes if you’re an Hispanic organization and want to reach out to a more diverse audience: You want to establish an inclusive environment. You need representation on a board of trustees or advisory board and staff.”

A more Hispanic America
Of America’s growing ranks of foreign-born residents, the U.S. Census Bureau says almost half (46 percent) are of Latino or Hispanic origin. In the 1990s, the number of people in these groups in the United States rose by 13 million, including a 53 percent rise among those of Mexican origin.  
    Much of this influx of Spanish-speaking U.S. residents is concentrated geographically. Fully half the nation’s Latinos and Hispanics live in California and Texas. At the time of the last census, “More than three-fourths of Hispanics lived in the West or South,” says Betsy Guzman, a U.S. Census Bureau statistician. “The counties that have the highest concentration of Latinos and Hispanics are located along the nation’s southwestern border,” especially in Texas and New Mexico. 
    Meeting planners, if not themselves Hispanic or Latino, will encounter a growing number of these individuals in the course of their work and increasingly will deal with Hispanic- and Latino-owned businesses. As of 2002, there were 1.6 million such businesses in the United States, a 31 percent rise over 1997. 
    “By 2010, Hispanic Americans’ purchasing power is going to be $1.2 trillion a year,” notes Horacio Gavilan, executive director of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies. “We’ve seen the myth that Hispanics are poor being blown away in the last few years. For example, companies like Mercedes-Benz and Tiffany are really pouring money into the Hispanic market now.”
    If planners wish to produce event information, brochures, websites and signage in a language besides English, Spanish would be the obvious first choice for reaching the largest numbers: 31 million American residents over the age of five speak Spanish at home, a ratio of more than one in 10 residents. However, many of those in Spanish-speaking households are bilingual: More than half say they speak English “very well.” 
    “Language is not the only factor,” Gavilan says. “For example, when putting print materials together, make sure there are pictures with Hispanics and other minorities you want to appeal to.”

Minority report
As the rise in the number of Americans of Latino and Hispanic origin helps prove, America is becoming a more diverse, pluralistic society. The meetings industry must adjust to the country’s evolving tastes and mores, as well as cultural sensibilities and sensitivities. For planners, just scheduling an event should involve considerations of the nation’s multiculturalism.
    “Our sales in the United States have doubled every year for the last five years,” says Eric Snyder, president and CEO of TCM.com Inc., which distributes a multicultural calendar highlighting “schedule alert days” for religious holidays and cultural festivals celebrated by various ethnic and racial groups.  “There are 38 days in 2006 that could be considered schedule alert days. Those are days that somebody might ask for or take time off.
    “We think there are soft spots in planning for most organizations that you don’t discover until it happens to you,” Snyder adds. “You might schedule an event over a Jewish, Muslim or Indian holiday, for instance. ”
    According to Census Bureau statistics, racial and ethnic minorities in general will comprise a larger portion of the American population moving forward. While the category of non-Hispanic whites currently makes up two-thirds of the total U.S. population, that number will decline to one-half by the middle part of this century. In other words, the traditional “majority” of the United States is soon to become a minority. 
    “Today, you should be marketing your event to more than a Caucasian audience,” says NYU’s Lalia Rach. “You should be marketing to a broader more diverse population. Shouldn’t your marketing materials, pictures, graphics and text reflect that more diverse audience?”
    Among that audience, African Americans are today the second-largest American minority group after Hispanics. In the latest census, African Americans numbered 38.7 million people, or 13.3 percent of the total. Sixty percent of this population resides within 10 U.S. states, with five states each reporting populations of more than 2 million: New York, California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. 
    Other ethnic and racial groups have gained prominence in the United States as well. The last census shows that 11.9 million Americans are of Asian decent. Among those, 20 percent are of Chinese decent, the largest Asian group in the U.S. (Filipinos came in second and Asian Indians third.) As of the 2000 census, almost half of Asian Americans lived in the West, where 9.9 percent of the population has an Asian heritage. 
    Another fast-growing group has Arab ancestry. In the last census, 1.2 million Americans reported Arabian roots (with the largest segments from Lebanon, Syria and Egypt). This segment grew by 41 percent in the 1980s and 38 percent in the 1990s, according to data from the Census Bureau. 
    Given such statistics, organizers of trade shows, conventions, incentives and meetings will doubtless do business with increasing number of minority-owned firms, either as suppliers, clients, exhibitors or attendees. 
    “Our country is succeeding, especially by measures such as the dramatic increase in the number of minority- and women-owned businesses,” says Census Bureau director Louis Kincannon. “Overall, for black-owned businesses, there was a 45 percent increase in the number of firms; for Hispanics or Latinos, the increase was 31 percent; women-owned businesses grew 20 percent, and there was a 24 percent growth in Asian-owned businesses. By contrast, the increase in white-owned firms was 8 percent.”

Age and the attendee
But demography can reveal more than racial makeup, and more than race goes into attracting and accommodating attendees. For instance, census figures show the typical American and therefore the typical meeting or event participant is getting older. This is because the baby boom generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) continues to define the demographics of age in America. The 2000 census recorded a median age of 35.3 years in the United States, meaning half of all Americans are older and half are younger than that age. 
    However, as Americans age, the portion of those 65 and older increases at a slower rate than the overall U.S. population. “This reflects the relatively low number of births in the late 1920s and early 1930s,” says Campbell Gibson, a senior Census Bureau demographer. 
    With baby boomers poised to enter retirement, however, the numbers of those over 65 will soon surge. By 2011, when the oldest boomers retire, the population over 65 will grow more quickly in every state than the general population, says the Census Bureau. By 2025, the senior population is predicted to go up by a huge 80 percent over today, while the rest of the population rises by only 15 percent. 
    How can planners best attract and accommodate these growing ranks of older Americans? “There is a tendency in this country to think that when you reach a certain age you’re supposed to be really adult and not have fun anymore,” says Dr. Rach of New York University. “But it’s just not true anymore. Boomers have rebelled against being classified, whether they’re 40 or 50 or yet to be 60. They’re going to want to have fun, even if it’s differently defined.”
    “For an association, because of sheer number of people, you’re going to have a wide variety of expectations and a wide variety of age ranges,” notes Chris Pentz of Pentz Group Communications. “The best you can do is try to find out from previous meetings what kind of composition your group will have. It makes a difference if they are younger or older. I do a lot of medical meetings, and quite a lot of physician thought-leaders are not recent graduates let’s put it that way. But you want them just as happy as everyone else. You do want to provide something for everybody.”
    For instance, Generation X (those born between 1965-1975) has a demographic profile that can help planners satisfy attendees from that group. A recent survey by Charlotte and Laura Shelton for their book, The NeXt Revolution: What Gen X Women Want at Work and How Their Boomer Bosses Can Help Them Get It (Davies-Black), found Gen Xers want stimulation, flexibility and friendship in a professional environment. In fact, 77 percent say they would leave their job for “increased intellectual stimulation” elsewhere; 61 percent of Gen Xer women would leave their job for one offering more flexibility. (Interestingly, the average Gen X employee in his or her 20s stays at a job for only 1.1 years.)
    Planners of events will want to fulfill these generational desires to boost attendance among young attendees by offering social opportunities, reduced schedules, flexibility and the chance for a meaningful voice in the decision-making process, according to the Sheltons’ research.
    The youngest attendees also have different needs and preferences. Says Dr. Rach, “The next generation, Generation Y, depends on visual learning. All their lives they were raised on graphics, games, the Internet and online games. This is a generation whose marketing has been pictorial and graphic. I’m not suggesting that this generation doesn’t read, but to speak to them, to attract them, you need to be dynamic in your use of graphics and pictures. It’s more staid when it’s all words. Once you have the millennium generation’s attention, you have to deliver a message that is more than textual.”

Other demographics
The Census Department and other demographers track reams of information beyond race, national origin, income and age. For instance, a look at Census 2000 should tell planners their meeting participants are better educated than ever, with 80.4 percent of Americans over age 25 graduating from high school or college, compared with 66.5 percent just 20 years earlier. In fact, 24.4 percent of Americans over 25 have a bachelor’s degree or beyond, whereas that number was 16.2 percent in 1980. Such knowledge can help a planner understand the aptitude and comprehension levels of attendees. 
    The census in 2000 also counted 49.7 million Americans with a long-lasting disability almost one in five people over the age of 5. Further, 3.6 percent have a sensory disability involving hearing or sight. In other words, planners need to be prepared to address attendees’ special needs. 
    “For a meeting where attendees are visually impaired, we make sure there are dog relief areas, that materials such as late-night menus and phone lists are in Braille and large print. We make sure the concierge provides plastic bags for dogs and that the lobby is easy to navigate,” says Kelly Parisi, vice president for communications with the American Foundation for the Blind. “These are not just good measures for the visually impaired, but for everybody. We work with hotels in how to give room key cards to guests who are visually impaired, how to provide check-out materials, how to give cash back by letting them know the denomination of bills as they’re giving change, which allows the low-vision person to fold the bills correctly.”
    Besides sight impairments, common disabilities affect how people climb stairs, reach, lift and carry. For older attendees, disabilities are more common: 42 percent of women and 38 percent of men 65 and older have disabilities, according to the Census Department. 
    Such demographic information is vital to making planners aware of the requirements of their attendees. “A planner must constantly recognize that as the customer is changing, marketing needs to change,” says Dr. Rach. “The programmatic element, speakers, and internal and external messages need to change, too.”