12 Strategic Meetings Management Trends
1. Focus is moving to the end-user and attendee experience, rather than traditional areas such as savings and cost control.
2. We are seeing further integration of technology to create efficiencies and to meet younger stakeholders’ expectations, such as the rise of bots to simplify tasks. This includes an increased desire for integrated multi-platform strategies.
3. Funding models are shifting and with decreasing commissions, agencies must show their true value.
4. There will continue to be a focus on enhanced data analytics for high yielding areas such as tracking attendee attendance. Insights on attendance and the overall event experience can help shape future events.
5. New styles of room layouts for meeting spaces that aim to increase collaboration and engagement levels within meetings.
6. There is a drive within global programs for consistency of delivery across all countries where the programs are live.
7. There will be a greater focus on management of payments to stop rogue payments before they are made. This will assist complete spend control and mitigate risk through identity theft and cyber security attacks.
8. Clients will look to gain further visibility of the true total cost of a meeting. For example, not just the hotel costs, but the travel and expense costs of everyone attending.
9. There will be a greater spotlight on sustainability and growth of CSR initiatives, with closer inspection of the environmental impact of meetings and events.
10. With ongoing consolidation of hotel suppliers, we have seen greater emphasis on strategy around market share with particular focus placed on those hotels who will accept our clients own contract terms and conditions.
11. There will be an increased focus on attendee safety and security. Continued tracking of who is traveling when and restricting meetings in cities and countries considered high risk will help manage this are.
12. A further increase in data security. We’ll continue to see legislation to ensure that programs comply with regulations such as GDPR and new laws and guidelines such as in Brazil and California.
