In 2024, internal meetings are anticipated to continue to be a prominent growth driver for the meetings and events sector. According to the 13th Annual Global Meetings and Events Forecast published by American Express GBT Meetings & Events, this is mostly motivated by firms looking to develop partnerships and connect their dispersed workforces.
More than 500 meeting and events experts from around the world were polled for the 2024 Forecast, and more than a dozen business titans also provided insight. Internal meetings are expected to expand the fastest of all meeting kinds, according to meeting pros, with 48% of respondents projecting more attendees in 2019.
The following are other highlights from the 2024 Forecast:
28% of respondents claim that programs have already reached or surpassed pre-pandemic attendance levels, and 42% anticipate achieving that objective in 2024.
Lead times are expected to be the same or shorter in 2024 by 72% of meeting planners.
Only 25% of respondents stated they were likely or very likely to look for a job in the upcoming year; of those, more than 65% intend to stay in the same sector, showing that meeting professionals are still optimistic about the industry’s future.
“With more distributed workforces than ever, companies are reassessing the importance of internal interactions for team cohesion, productivity, creativity, engagement, and employee welfare,” said Gerardo Tejado, SVP, Professional Services, Amex GBT. There has never been more evidence that face-to-face interactions and encounters are vital, acting as the foundation for both personal and professional success. According to our forecast, 2024 will be a dynamic year since expenditures are growing, attendance is up, and technological use is accelerating quickly.
Internal In-Person Meetings Are Accelerated by Distributed Workforce Models
The majority of respondents predicted that meetings and events would either be totally in-person (59%) or hybrid (20%) in the coming year, with 21% of events taking place virtually. Given the widespread use of hybrid and remote working models by enterprises, meetings and events play a bigger part in bringing disparate teams together and the importance of in-person contacts keeps rising.
According to 42% of respondents, there will be more internal meetings and customer advisory boards in 2016. This is expected to be followed by incentives (38%), small and simple meetings (37% each), product launches, senior leadership meetings, conferences with trade shows (35%), and conferences without trade shows (30%).
According to Amex GBT’s Hotel Monitor 2024, hotel rates will probably continue to grow in most places around the world in 2024, and meetings and events will likely take the place of leisure travel’s dwindling demand.
The Digital Divide is Being Bridged
The way meeting professionals conduct their work, including location research, event communication, and registration automation, is projected to undergo significant change as a result of technology. For personalized attendee messaging, artificial intelligence (AI) is being employed more and more; 42% of respondents said they expect to use AI in 2024. With an anticipated usage rate of over 60%, mobile apps are expected to remain a mainstay at meetings and events. Virtual reality technologies are still being tested by meeting professionals, with 41% of respondents planning to utilize them in 2019.
According to Tejado, “Meeting planners must effectively harness the available tools by using technology for task automation, revising meeting program policies to accelerate budget approvals, and integrating business and meetings travel.”
Adoption of sustainability is still increasing.
By the end of 2024, their organizations would have net zero goals, according to the majority of meeting professionals (78%). locating qualified suppliers (39%) and budget (35%), assessing impact and post-event CO2 calculation (32%), locating places with little travel time (28%), and a lack of skills/resources/knowledge (23%), are a few of the problems respondents mentioned.
Global Perspective: Regional Perspective
What the industry might anticipate in the following year varies by area.
N. AMERICA
Meeting industry experts in North America claim that they are busy, engaged, and enthusiastic about new technology as we move into the coming year. They think things are going well for their line of work: When asked how positive they were about the state of the industry, 84% responded that they would rate their own optimism at 8 or above on a scale of 1 to 10. According to 77% of respondents, the number of attendees has already surpassed 2019 levels or will in 2024. Cost and health and safety issues are the two factors most likely to have an impact on the number of attendees.
Europe
Compared to respondents from North America and Latin America, meeting professionals in Europe anticipate moderate growth in activity in 2019. Internal meetings will still be a major component of European meeting agendas. According to respondents, 52% of meetings will take place in hotels, 48% would call for overnight accommodations, and 46% will be held in locations other than the business headquarters. The region has the lowest anticipated domestic air travel for guests, at 33%, which is perhaps not a surprise.
Pacific Asia
In terms of organizations that have already established corporate net zero goals, Asia Pacific is in the lead with 63%. 74% of respondents in the Asia Pacific region state that sustainability is very important or extremely important for their organization, and 67% report that sustainability has been heavily included into their meeting activities.
Meeting planners in Latin America anticipate increasing meeting space availability in 2024 while expecting hotel room availability to remain constant. Nearly half (48%) of respondents expressed anxiety about location availability.
Source- Travel daily
Link- https://www.traveldailymedia.com/amex-gbt-internal-meetings-and-ai-accelerate-industry-growth/