Benchmarking

Benchmarking

What Makes the Unique Venues Benchmarking Surveys Different Than Other Industry and Association Surveys?

Most benchmarking studies have a limited window for data collection and are only conducted once per year, at best. If you miss the window for participation, you must wait months or even years to participate in the next one. Unique Venues will allow rolling data entry and update summary data twice per year. In order to keep data current, survey entries will expire after 15 months and venues will be required to resubmit survey data in order to continue to receive summary data.
In order to create the largest data set possible, the benchmarking survey will be available to any unique venue, whether a registered member of Unique Venues or not. Non-members who participate in the survey will receive a high-level summary for all respondents.
In addition to summary data, Unique Venues will allow a member to identify a set of 10 peer venues and receive aggregated summary data that compares their venue to the peer set. This may be done once per member year, and the comparison set may be changed each time.

How Will Data Be Made Available to Those Who Complete the Survey?

Summary Data* Comparison Data
Twice per year, Unique Venues will release a summary of aggregated benchmarking data for the following groups:

  • All Respondents
  • Canadian Respondents
  • United States Respondents
  • Regional Breakdowns for Canada and the US
Members who have completed the survey may select a set of ten peers from all respondents to receive a customized benchmarking summary against a comparison set. The data for the selected set will be aggregated in order to protect individual member data. 

  • Premium Members – Included with Package Price
  • Priority Members – Available with Package Options
  • Comprehensive & Core Members – Available as an Add-on Service

*All Unique Venues members who have completed the survey within the past 15 months will receive access to the summary reports as a part of their membership. Non-members who have completed the survey within the past 15 months will receive the summary for all respondents and may purchase the additional summary data from Unique Venues.

College and University Venues

Core Survey: The Core Survey is designed to provide fundamental benchmarking data for institutions involved in conferences and events. The survey questions were developed and refined over time with a focus group of conference and event professionals at a variety of different institutions. As ‘unique’ venues, we know that not every question and set of responses will map perfectly to your individual campus environment. We have done our best to provide a set of common definitions where needed, and enough options in the response set to each question to allow you to most accurately map your environment to the survey. Unique Venues will continue to refine this tool based on feedback from the first round of responses expected throughout 2020.

Survey Instructions:  Completing all sections of the survey should take somewhere between 35-45 minutes, if you have all the necessary data available. Based on feedback from the focus group, it will take between 60-90 minutes or longer to gather the data required. In order to assist with gathering the data, you can download a copy of the survey questions here. While it is not mandatory to provide data for all sections, we strongly encourage institutions to collaborate with campus partners and provide as much data as possible. The more data collected, the more robust the benchmarking results will be.

Once you start the survey, you can save your progress and return to the survey as often as you need to complete all questions. Incomplete surveys will remain active indefinitely, provided activity in the survey is recorded at least once every 30 days. The system will not send reminders as the 30-day window approaches. Once a survey is completed, it cannot be changed without contacting Joel Hauff at [email protected].

Additional Surveys: Additional surveys are planned that will dive more deeply into some of the focus areas of the Core Survey. These surveys will be shorter in length and updated periodically based on issues and trends that impact the meetings and events industry. If you would like to be considered for the advisory team on a future benchmarking survey for the college and university venues, please contact Joel Hauff at [email protected].

Non-Campus Venues: Unique Venues plans to launch a benchmarking study for non-campus venues during the 2nd-half of 2020, with categories and questions related to pricing, services, and operations. If you represent a non-campus unique venue and would like to be a part of the advisory team for this new survey, please contact Joel Hauff at [email protected].

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