The UK is in the middle of a cost of living crises with energy price hikes higher than most have seen in their lifetime and inflation rates at their highest for over 40+ years. As we brace ourselves for a difficult Winter ahead, event planners should expect further price increased across the board heading into 2023.

A report entitled ‘2023 Global Business Travel Forecast’ was published by CWT and the Global Business Travel Association, which estimates that the average cost-per-attendees in 2022 was 25% higher than 2019 levels, and will rise a further 7% in 2023.

The huge pent up demand in the post-covid era, coupled with shorter lead times we have experienced in 2022 have driven up the prices across all areas. As suppliers raise prices for event related costs, so have production, printing, transportation too, in addition to the actual venue costs such as room hires, F&B and Accommodation.

High costs of labour and increasing costs of supplies, together with rising inflation, has driven price hikes to new levels of which clients have to bear the cost.

Increasing demand, same supply

The increase in demand for events in 2022 has been huge. At Hippo we saw a 50% increase in enquiries in 2022 compared to our previous best year. There are many factors which caused this, namely the lack of meeting face-to-face the previous two years, plus the fact that many companies have now given up office space and are now booking meeting space to bring employees together.

Corporate meetings are now competing for space, and where we used to see a very clear First Option / Second Option format, many venues are now option for a Joint First Option / Share First Option (same thing) basis, which means first to sign the contract gets the space.

Last year there was a very clear and evident struggle for hotels and venues to recruit staff quick enough, which meant they were working at reduced capacity with higher than pre-covid demand.

According to the report, flight and hotel prices are expected to rise by more than 8% each year.

The report also predicted the increase of global travel prices in air fares, which was expected to increase by 48.5% by the end of 2022 in comparison to 2021, with an even further increase by 8.45% in 2023.

Ground transportation is also expected to finalise as a 7.3% increase in 2022, with a rise of 6.8% predicted for 2023.

The report suggests hotel rates are rose by 18.5% by the end of 2022 and are due to increase by 8.2% in 2023.

All in all, it makes for some quite scary reading. This also highlights the need to book in advance for your events, allowing you greater control over your budget and time for negotiation and to do your due diligence with comparative quotes.

Hippo offer Event Project Management and Global Venue Finding services. Contact us today on 01372 460 100 or events@hippoevents.co.uk to see how we can assist.