Convention and Meeting Gifts in a Tight Economy

In this tight economy, meeting professionals and event planners have been given smaller budgets to work with. Even in these tough economic times, companies understand the value of welcoming their speakers and attendees, many of whom have traveled from the US or the world, with a welcome gift upon arrival in their hotel room. .

In the past, those visitors would often receive a gift basket filled with local or regional items which, in our case, might include California walnuts, tortilla chips, salsa, a California hat, a San Diego coffee table book and local gifts. representative of the artisans of our host city.

As meeting professionals’ resources have dwindled, extravagance can send the wrong message, so they’re being very careful about how they spend their money. Instead of large gifts, more businesses are opting for an inexpensive gabled box or bag filled with snacks in the $15-$25 range. The important thing is to make your guests feel important and send an inexpensive snack box filled with local items will do just that.

Most gift basket companies are happy to work within their clients’ budgets, however these lower budgets can create a bit of a challenge.

Budget doesn’t have to mean cheap, it just means we need to be more creative with the types of products we can offer to meet these lower budgets. Providing free printed ribbon tails on meeting and convention giveaways and encouraging customers to provide their own promotional products to include in your designs are just two of the things that can add perceived value to your giveaways.

We’ve seen hotel service budgets shrink, but not completely eliminated, because speakers and meeting and convention attendees expect a welcome gift when they arrive at their hotel room and that probably won’t change any time soon.