Meetings industry players say observe resilience globally with groups travelling closer to home. Photo Credit: iStock/Sze kiat Koh
At the recent global events mid-year update by the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE), panelists said sentiment around meetings and incentives remains positive, even as planners navigate a more complex travel environment.
With business class loads being an effective barometer for sentiment, there is reason to expect continued confidence.
Micheal Dominguez, president & CEO for Associated Luxury Hotels International (ALHI), said: “Airlines have a larger preview of the travel sector than we do because of their booking windows; if you look at business airlines such as Delta and United, they're very bullish at the moment,” he said.
Sticking close to source
Oscar Cerazales, global president at MCI Group said that agency is seeing clients opting for destinations with shorter flight times when they can.
“We’re not seeing changes in a disruptive way; incentives are still going ahead, but they may just take place within the client’s own country or close by, rather than flying to a longer-haul international destination,” he said. “This could be down to airfare costs, or because the insurance won’t cover a certain area.”
Budgets need to be spent
Cerazales added that while the agency has seen event cancellations and postponements, many clients have committed marketing budgets and these will need to be spent.
“Clients may not have spent all the money [allocated for events] this year, there’s going to be a catch-up,” he said. "If you recall the year after Covid-19 and two years after, there was this big catch-up with events.”
With regards to congress destinations, some were chosen five years previously and Cerazales says these are not changing save for a few exceptions.
Events are resilient in uncertain times
The overriding sentiment from the panel focused on how, during periods of instability, there’s a greater need for events and for people to connect as human beings.
ALHI’s Dominguez said: “Meetings are really focused on our humanity, and this engagement and connection. When the world's uncertain, you want a hug. And the hug is that meeting, and being with others that have a like-minded mindset, and there's some comfort in that. If there’s any benefit of the pain we felt during Covid as a meetings industry, it’s that we're finding today that meetings are not discretionary.”