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Planners diverge on outside assistance.

Article Excerpt
The pressures and time constraints of planning meetings with fewer in-house planners and the growing inclination of some corporations to develop enterprisewide meetings management programs have led corporate buyers to involve a wide array of third-party suppliers for both single-event and overall program support, according to an exclusive Meetings Monitor study.

The survey of 101 corporate meeting buyers found that travel management companies most frequently are the recipients of outsourced meeting functions, although destination management companies are nearly as popular. Twenty-nine percent and 25 percent of respondents, respectively, cited those suppliers in a poll in which buyers were permitted to select more than one option. Independent planners and meetings management companies combined were cited by 17 percent of respondents and 14 percent selected convention and visitors bureaus.

It's difficult to assess the marketplace and determine whether corporations are outsourcing more or less, but it does appear that third parties today receive more varied requests for...