families toss water balloons at
Twelve Acres in Smithfield.
At Twelve Acres of Smithfield banquet house on a recent Sunday, Bank Rhode Island’s company outing included all the elements of a classic summertime company picnic: sack races, face painting, a clambake.
The event, attended by about 450 Bank RI employees and family members, was the company’s annual summer outing, but it also served as a celebration of its five-year anniversary, said Stephen Turgeon, Bank RI vice president of corporate communications.
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At a time when one might think the sluggish economy is forcing companies to trim their budgets for corporate outings, Turgeon said Bank RI wanted to splurge on its event.
“We haven’t cut back at all. If anything we wanted to do more for our employees,” he said.
But Bank RI might be in the minority.
According to companies on the other end of the corporate-event equation, it appears many firms might be tightening their belts a bit when it comes to company outings.
“There’s no question that companies are cutting back,” said Arlene Petri, president of LoveBoston Inc., which plans corporate outings for New England companies.
“Some companies that went all out for their corporate event last year can’t do as much because the funds just aren’t there,” Petri said. “They’ll say ‘We used to take the whole company to Newport,’ and now they just don’t have the money to do that.”
Petri said that while many of the clients that are cutting way back are Boston-area technology firms that have suffered through the tech-sector shakeout, companies in other industries – including financial services – also are trimming their corporate-event budgets.
The effects are being felt hard in Newport, a corporate-outing Mecca in the Northeast for both small companies and large corporations.
“In general it looks like companies are cutting back on the number of meetings and events they’re planning,” said Robert Rosenberg, president and chief executive officer of the Newport County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
Rosenberg said that is the word from more than 50 corporate meeting and event planners that visited Newport earlier this month for a two-day tour of the city’s attractions and hotels.
“In talking to the corporate planners, it’s sounds like it’s a national trend that companies are looking much closer at prices and hotel rates,” Rosenberg said.
That trend is borne out in lackluster hotel bookings in Newport. Bed-tax revenue in Newport County was down 4 percent for the year through May, compared to the same period during 2000, according to Rosenberg.
He said much of that decline is attributable to a slowdown in corporate bookings, as opposed to the individual leisure market, which has held up fairly well.
“The slowdown in group business has hurt,” said Rosenberg. “Some major pieces of business have just cancelled altogether.”
However, there’s room for optimism. Rosenberg said that many of the corporate planners he talked to are anticipating that corporate spending on events will pick up soon. And he was quick to point out that Newport is coming off of several record tourism seasons in a row.
T.R. McGrath, owner of Tom McGrath Clambakes Inc. in Newport, agreed that it’s tough to meet those expectations every year.
“We have seen a slight downturn, but after so many banner years, I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed,” said McGrath, whose company specializes in traditional clambakes and lobster boils for corporate outings. “There was somewhat of a scare that companies would put the brakes on fringe-benefit type of events, but it really hasn’t shown up in the books too much.”
(Photo courtesy of Bank Rhode Island)
