What will shape the meetings industry in 2024

In 4 Key Questions for Corporate Travel in 2024, American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) highlights trends that will shape the industry across the domains of pricing, technology, future of work, and corporate responsibility.

Will travel costs continue to rise?

Expect hotel and air prices to be impacted by demand, staffing, and economic conditions over the next 12 months. In 2024, the price picture will become less volatile. Hotel rates are expected to moderate compared to the increases seen in 2022 and 2023 – but expect hotel prices to climb around the world. As a rule of thumb, expect hotel rate increases to closely mirror the rate of inflation in a destination. In APAC, rates are expected to increase in the following manner for the following cities:

• Singapore: 7.5%
• Kuala Lumpur: 7%
• Hong Kong: 1.9%
• Jakarta: 10.9%
• Seoul: 6.3%
• Tokyo: 4%
• Osaka: 5.5%
• Mumbai: 15%
• Hanoi: 5.8%
• Shanghai: 8.4%
• Sydney: 4.9%

Revenge tourism may be losing momentum which can reduce price levels, but destinations with strong economic forecasts can expect hotel prices to rise. One example is India, where strong forecasted growth is driving big rate increases. Growing demand from meetings and group travel could also push up prices.

Air travel

In contrast to the hotel rate rises, air fares are expected to stabilise across key routes globally. After record 2023 earnings from strong demand, high fares, and a drop in jet fuel prices, airlines could find conditions more challenging in the year ahead. Rising costs for skilled staff and fuel are putting pressure on airlines – but with healthy capacity returning on many routes, particularly long haul, and revenge travel fading, airlines may not have room to push up prices. Expect to see marginal price rises, and some falls, on regional and international business travel routes.

AI - hype or a competitive tool?

The ability to create content from machine learning is GenAI’s distinguishing feature and the source of its vast potential - Goldman Sachs researchers say it could have the ability to drive a 7% increase in global GDP over 10 years.

However, created by millions of people, this data can be flawed, biased, and inaccurate. GenAI-fueled mistakes will continue to make headlines and organisations need to be thorough in their due diligence before using GenAI. However, business leaders remain convinced that GenAI is much more than hype: research for EY finds 70% of CEOs are accelerating GenAI investments to maintain a competitive edge.

Expect to see rapidly growing integration of AI technologies across the managed travel value chain in 2024 and beyond. As travel invests in these technologies, they will become more efficient, more effective, and more prominent, while noting the importance of data integrity, privacy, security and accuracy.

Hybrid work

The tension continues between employees who enjoy the flexibility of hybrid work, and employers who want them back in the office. Many organisations have now adopted some form of distributed workforce model, with employees working remotely for at least part of the week. Employees enjoy the flexibility of hybrid work, and are less likely to quit if they can work from their desired location.

However, these new workforce patterns can impact company cohesion. 71% of business leaders and managers say that a primarily remote work model can make employees feel disconnected from the organisation.

And increasing numbers of employers want staff to return to the office. According to KPMG research, almost two-thirds of global CEOs believe there will be a full return to the office in three years’ time – and 87% are considering rewards and incentives for office attendance.

The changing patterns in the workplace will continue to strengthen the role of travel and meetings programmes in connecting people and supporting company culture, helping them to interact face-to-face to unlock benefits for the organisation.

Power of face time

The strong benefits of meeting in-person for internal purposes among employees, teammates, new hires include:

• Stronger relationships between employees/teams (74%)
• Greater collaboration (60%)
• Stronger organisational culture (55%)
• Greater employee engagement (54%)
• Increased feeling of inclusion for remote workers/dispersed teams (46%)

In today’s hybrid world, travel plays a key role in making these in-person interactions happen. Patricia Huska, chief people officer, Amex GBT, said: “In today’s world of distributed workforces, business leaders increasingly value travel as an effective way to strengthen bonds between co-workers, spur collaboration, and support company culture. Travel is a sign of commitment; by being there, you’re showing that you care enough about the relationship to be there in person.”

Internal meetings and strengthening culture

Companies are embracing internal meetings to reunite their distributed workforces and strengthen relationships between employees.

• Meetings professionals expect internal meetings to see the strongest growth of all meeting types – 48% predict more attendees next year.
• Meetings professionals confirm the industry is on track for recovery – 28% say programmes have already met or exceeded pre-pandemic attendee levels and 42% expect to reach that goal in 2024.
• Underlining the value of meetings – 67% of meetings professionals predict 2024 meetings spend to increase year over year; 13% projected that increase would be more than 10%.

Will ESG remain in the spotlight?

In today’s landscape, colleagues, customers, and partners want to work with and for companies that invest in sustainable and inclusive business operations and value chains. The need to attract and nurture new talent and boost the employer value proposition is critical. Gen Z workers are particularly focused on purpose, and they think about how an organisation aligns with their identity and personal brand. For this group, networks, relationships, and trust among people, teams, and leaders are very important. Companies can nurture such social capital by empowering employees to build and maintain networks and relationships, giving them the access, skills, and motivation to do so.

Organisations are coming under more pressure to deliver against environmental commitments and emissions reduction targets, both internally via employees and leadership, and externally via shareholders, business partners and regulators.

Strategies for ESG

Strategies may start with more granular carbon calculations, changing behaviour by influencing choice at the point of sale (for example driving modal shift from plane to train), sourcing more sustainably, implementing a price on carbon emissions, and investing in carbon compensation and carbon mitigation via sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Initiatives may focus on:

• Sourcing strategies that select suppliers based on sustainability criteria across air, rail, hotel, and car
• Building a sustainable investment fund with 'carbon contribution' fees attached to business travel
• Defining criteria to measure purposeful, thoughtful travel and meetings including ROI, carbon emissions, and savings.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I)

Leaders can play a key role in driving DE&I progress by:

• Travel and meetings offer opportunities to embrace inclusivity by way of personal development and career progression, experiences, and learning. Does the current programme enable all employees, including colleagues with disabilities to access travel and meetings opportunities?
• Develop an employee satisfaction survey that asks the right questions around networks, empowerment, trust, inclusivity, and career development.
• Understand your company’s social footprint via employee resource groups (ERGs), and using them to better understand different people’s particular needs.
• Analyse spend for supplier diversity, and set goals for improvement such as increasing the percentage of minority-owned businesses.