Meeting planners’ roles have evolved to provide attendees more opportunities to connect pre- and post-event. Photo Credit: GBTA
At the recent GBTA APAC Conference 2023 in Singapore, speakers shared
insights on how meeting planners can embrace change in the face of
increasing digitisation. The speakers were:
· Ewan Lim, APAC travel operations lead/global category lead hotels, Johnson & Johnson Travel & Meeting Services
· Phil Boyle, SVP, MD, Asia, Jack Morton Worldwide
· Petrina Goh, regional commercial director, SEA & HK, CWT Meetings & Events
· Corinne Janssen, assistant VP, sales (Southeast Asia & Australasia), Shangri-La Group.
Moderator, Will Kataria, senior director & GM, Asia Pacific,
Cvent, led the discussion. Here are some highlights of the session,
Meetings & Events in Asia: Embracing Change and Evolving with
Digitisation:
· On an average, about 24% of a company's marketing budget goes to
events and meetings. Within Asia, about 67% of planners said they expect
to host more in-person events this year.
· Singapore has emerged as the number one event destination in Asia
for this year. The sourcing volumes this year are 30% higher in the
Republic than last year, despite the cost challenges in Singapore.
· 77% of the respondents said they have higher expectation of digital features or visual engagement at events.
· The roles and responsibilities of a planner are changing. Prior to
2020, the key roles were planning, marketing , providing data, running
an event, finding a venue, F&B and catering.
· Now, additional responsibilities include offering opportunities for
attendees to connect pre- and post-event, and providing on-demand
content after the event.
· Clients want richer data besides the attendance list. They want to
know which audience is more engaged and who they should talk to first
before the event – they want to be able to find people they want their
team to meet and to set up appointments.
· Meeting planners are struggling to find space to host events and managing cost.
· Utilising tech in the right manner to increase engagement metrics.
· The pandemic affected many middle management layers in hotels so it
is vital to secure the next generation of leadership for the next
decade.
· Hybrid meetings are here to stay. At Johnson & Johnson, AV
rooms have been created for hybrid meetings where surgeons can
demonstrate new technology. Employees want to focus their time on
business that they need to be in country for, as opposed to traveling
four or five days outside of the market.
· AI tools have helped planners to build websites quicker for clients
to go to market faster by driving audience adoption rates. AI is also
being used to personalise guest experience so that individualised guest
journeys can be created with data upon signing up.
· To engage the TikTok generation or an audience that has an
extremely short attention span, planners need to capture their attention
within five seconds or else they would scroll past the event video.