United Kingdom
United States
Asia Pacific
Future meeting outlook positive but expect changes
Virtual meetings are growing but the outlook for small and large events in the year 2020 is strong, according to a survey of 1,125 meeting and event professionals from 76 countries who were asked to look into the future.
"But to attract customers will require significant innovation in meeting formats, business models, organizational capabilities and the use of technology," according to Martin Sirk, CEO of the International Congress and Convention Association.
That group together with IMEX and Fast Future Research sponsored the Convention 2020 study.
"Far greater focus on enabling business will be expected, ranging from ensuring the right people are there to facilitating on the spot transactions and proving the return on investment," said project director and Fast Future CEO Rohit Talwar. He added:
"The next decade promises an uncertain economic climate where optimism and growth will be unevenly distributed across the planet, and where technology will offer an ever wider range of alternatives to live events.”
Study highlights:
• Nearly 80 percent of respondents expected growth in smaller, more sophisticated meetings.
• About half expected fewer larger events.
• Almost half of the participants forecast an "explosion in the number of free or very low-cost evening only meetings held in low-cost venues," such as libraries, wine bars and schools.
• Networking will be the biggest single factor to encourage attendance by 2020, agreed three-quarters of the respondents.
• Three-quarters of respondents expect live video streaming to remote participants to be common by 2020 and 70 percent expect a social network before, during and after events.
• Asked to identify the main drivers of today, a majority answered “quality of content, interaction, technology and networking.”
The three largest respondent groups in the study were the United States (22 percent), Germany (12 percent) and United Kingdom (11 percent), followed by Asia-Australasia (11 percent), Middle East-Africa (5 percent) and South America (2 percent).
By David Wilkening
David
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