In a sign of belt tightening across the financial advisory industry, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), is cutting back its conference programming for next year, the organization said yesterday. Instead of its customary seven conferences, the group will sponsor just four in 2010.

Next year’s programming does away with the small geographical meetings in favor of larger conferences based on topics that will attract a lot of advisors, said Ellen Turf, chief executive officer of NAPFA, based in Arlington Heights, Ill. The first major meeting scheduled for 2010 is NAPFA’s national conference in May in Chicago. “Money is tight. Travel budgets are cut,” Turf said. “We want to make sure we are giving members the best value we can … by not fragmenting our efforts over so many [meetings].”

NAPFA was not the only industry organization contacted by Financial Planning that pared back its conference schedule for next year. The Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) cut its schedule back from eight meetings to six, said Beau Ballinger, corporate communications manager for IMCA. In 2010 it will hold just one professional development conference, instead of two.

“In any given year, IMCA puts twice as much time and money into developing two professional development conferences,” Ballinger said. “Exhibitors and vendors pay twice as much or must choose which ‘national’ event to attend.”

That decision wasn’t made for financial reasons but IMCA discontinued the Toronto Consultants Conference after folding the Toronto chapter into the broader IMCA organization, Ballinger said. There were only 200 members in that chapter and it didn’t make financial sense to continue serving them separately, he said.

NAPFA has already had some success by consolidating niche meetings. Its Midwest Conference: Core Competency in Chicago last September, which combined a regional meeting with a topical one, was well received, Turf said. “It was more about the program than the fact that it was in the Midwest,” Turf said. “The members wanted to get back to basics.”

The Investment Advisers Association, in Washington, D.C., typically sponsors 11 to 13 onsite events every year, Nicole Hadfield, director of member services for the IAA, said. “At this time, we are not planning to cut back on any of those, because many of those are compliance workshops that are in held in cities,” she said. The compliance workshops tend to attract local professionals, who do not have to travel far.

Yet the IAA will minimize travel expenses by avoiding holding meetings at resorts. “In this environment resort locations is probably not appropriate,” Neil Simon, vice president for government relations, said. “I think scheduling programs in hub cities where travel is easier is important. I think it is incumbent on all of us to figure out new and better ways to deliver value.”