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| PwC's Robert Canton, with Roger Dow, U.S. Travel; Deborah Sexton, PCMA; Michael Gehrisch, DMAI; Bruce MacMillan, MPI; John Graham, ASAE; and Joseph McInerney, AH&LA. |
Two years after the meetings industry's allied organizations got all Five Families (as a huge fan of "The Godfather," I mean that as a compliment) on the question of figuring out, once and for all, the true value of meetings and conventions, they have their answer: $263 billion. That jaw-dropping number was front and center at the press conference in Washington, D.C., this afternoon where the Convention Industry Council (CIC) presented the results of its landmark new study,
The Economic Significance of Meetings to the U.S. Economy. Conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), with support from an alliance of 14 meetings- and travel-industry organizations, the study found that meetings contribute $263 billion in direct spending and 1.7 million job to the U.S. economy every year -- not to mention $106 billion to U.S. GDP.
