PHILADELPHIA – Health care exhibiting challenges tend to follow the recession.

But even in the face of some negative factors that have surfaced within the last 18 months, the outlook for conventions in the medical sector is certainly not as dire as it is for some other industries. There is still a strong value proposition for conventions, according to Skip Cox, plenary session speaker at the 2010 HCEA Convention Marketing Summit.

The Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Association (HCEA) Summit took place Jan. 14 at the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel in Philadelphia.

In the session Cox shared with Bill Trombetta, professor of pharmaceutical marketing at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Cox, who is the CEO and president of Exhibit Survey, delineated the trends that are indicators of the effectiveness of conventions. These include professional attendance and the profiles of professional attendees, as well as the effectiveness of the exhibit program in reaching potential audience.

While other industries have seen an overall decline of 15.6 percent in convention attendance, the decline in the healthcare field since 2008 has been about 5.6 percent.  And although the first two quarters of 2010 will probably see a slight decline, Cox’s indicators point to flat attendance figures or slight increases in 2011, with a moderate growth in attendance of 2 to 3 percent in 2012.

Part of the healthcare exhibitor’s challenge is to provide the right kind of attraction and engagement for the audience, while being mindful of restrictions that come from both industry associations and from state legislatures.

While healthcare convention attendees traditionally spend less time on the floor than attendees at other shows, aside from networking, their goal is primarily education, on or off the floor, and learning about new products and therapies.

The competition for show floor traffic can come from the educational offerings at the conventions themselves or, for those healthcare professionals who are feeling the pressures of the economy, from on-line learning opportunities that don’t require travel or time away from their practices.

This realistic picture carried through the rest of the educational content of the Summit. Trombetta’s presentation picked up where Cox’s left off, discussing the actual content of the messages delivered by health care exhibitors. In light of the more stringent Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) initiatives that have become the focus of FDA drug safety activity, Trombetta warned, “Be careful. You can get people to your booth, but what you say can get you in trouble.”

Breakouts

The breakout sessions at the Summit offered a number of different options. These ranged from a review of HCEA’s ongoing work on modeling the exhibit hall of the future, a hall where navigation would make more sense from the attendees’ perspective,  to a managerial platform for communication, presented by Jeanette Balady of Pfizer and Kevin Weller of OneWorld.

The traditional HCEA industry/association exchange was offered concurrently with a review of the Oxford Economics Study, demonstrating how investment in conventions and business travel affects profitability.

The study showed that conventions help keep customers, convert prospects to customers, advance relational networking, and are a good investment in people. The data from the survey is available at www.meetingsmeanbusiness.com.

The last breakout session featured Karen Kotowski from the Convention Industry Council (CIC), Jami Leveen of ARAMARK’s Convention Center and Cultural Attractions group, and Anah Corley from APEX, the CIC’s accepted practices exchange group. This group gave an update on green meeting and events standards, articulating what it means to hold a sustainable event.

During the same time slot, Professor David McCaffry III, R.Ph., Ph.D., an associate professor of pharmacy administration at the University of Mississippi, presented a session that debuted at the 2009 HCEA Annual Meeting. His “Message in a Bottle” examined the credibility of the “messages” that health care companies deliver to doctors via direct sales, journal advertising and medical exhibits at conventions. The research showed that physicians reported the most skepticism with information contained in advertisements in medical journals (pharmaceutical or medical device).

Significant differences were found in levels of skepticism (less) of information received from sales representatives relative to journal advertisements (medical devices only) and in the level of skepticism of information received from medical exhibitors relative to journal advertisements (pharmaceuticals and medical devices).

Even though the orthopedic surgeons studied in this investigation reported that journals were the most frequented source for new product information, presumably through the scholarly articles contained within, the advertisements within those journals are viewed with the most skepticism. This is consistent with previous literature that has shown that specialists rely more heavily on primary literature as a source of information than they do on any other information source.

The HCEA Summit is an annual educational event that reviews research and trends that occur mid-year between the HCEA annual meetings. With attendance consistently over 200, the Summit is a no-nonsense look into what is driving the health care convention industry.

This 2010 HCEA Annual Meeting will be held June 26-29 in New Orleans. For more information, visit www.hcea.org.