According to IACC’s 2018 Meeting Room of the Future report, international meeting planners have noted a significant increase in conference delegates expressing dietary and allergen requirements during event registration.
As this trend is forecasted to grow in 2019, IACC – in collaboration with the World Obesity Foundation and industry partners such as MPI, Events Industry Council and Thrive Meetings and Events – has created the Guide to Managing Conference Delegate Dietary Requirements. The new, comprehensive guide is designed to help planners manage partnerships and liaison with venues on the topic of dietary needs and requirements to ensure delegate health and well-being.
The guide also explains the various allergens and emerging diets, including religious requirements and health-related allergens, and provides advice and practical tips on how to place delegate health and well-being at the heart of events without compromising on experience.
One of the pieces of research undertaken by IACC that surfaced a gap in the market which presented a challenge for planners and drove the creation of the dietary guide, was IACC’s latest Trends in Nutrition & Delegate Wellbeing study, which highlighted that 79 per cent of meeting planners agreed that they now receive more dietary requests in comparison to two years ago; only 75 per cent of venues offer training to staff on serving people with allergies; and only 33 per cent of venues include basic nutritional information on their menus.
Mark Cooper, IACC’s CEO, commented: “Last year, when I asked a room of 200 meeting planners if managing dietary needs was a challenge and 75 per cent or more raised their hands, I knew immediately that we needed to do more as an association and industry.
“As we conducted more research, we saw clearly that there was some valuable insights and best practice that if adopted, would help both our planner and venue community. This is just the beginning and we hope that in the near future we will see more training and certifications to support the competent management of dietary needs.”
The full guide can be downloaded here.
As an additional resource, in January 2019, IACC will be hosting two webinars, one for planners and one for venues, focused on F&B trends. Registrations will be made available at iacconline.org in due course.
