Despite economic downturn, 2009 brings unique business opportunities for meeting and event industry
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 | HOTELS
In partnership with American Express, Meeting Professionals International (MPI) released the initial executive summary of FutureWatch 2009 on www.mpiweb.org. A forward-looking survey of its worldwide membership, FutureWatch focuses on the trends which will affect the meeting and event industry in the next twelve months. This year’s survey had record participation with over 2,700 participants. Full survey results will be available at a presentation during MPI’s 2009 MeetDifferent® conference in Atlanta, Feb. 7-10.
According to this year’s results, the meeting industry will sharpen its focus and streamline its activities, when faced with a tough global market. The economic effect on the industry is not quite as severe as first anticipated. Meeting attendance, per meeting, is expected to increase by 3% in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and 9% in Canada, but decline by 5% in the United States.
“After three strong years, the global meeting and event industry is coming to grips with a major paradigm shift and the FutureWatch data reveals how acute the expectations are for change,” said Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of MPI. “Through initiatives like our Global Knowledge Plan, our objective is not only to ensure our members survive the shift, but also to find ways to thrive as the industry retrenches in an ebbing economic cycle.”
1 Comment to Despite economic downturn, 2009 brings unique business opportunities for meeting and event industry
Hopefully, the economy will pick up slowly now.
January 22, 2009