Recession puts pressure on budgets for business conferences | usatoday.com
When the commercial real estate market was booming, Margaret Bowles would attend conferences to schmooze with new business leads and complete continuing education classes. But the attorney, who has a real estate development practice in Houston, will skip the main conferences this year — the International Council of Shopping Centers' convention in Las Vegas in May and the council's law conference in October. She can't afford to pay for them. The Las Vegas event, with hotel and airfare, would cost her $3,000 alone. "My client base has dropped considerably," Bowles says. "It's probably not worth my while."
