Meeting professionals are living in interesting times, as economic and political uncertainty have resulted in a general malaise in the industry.
We checked in with Jill Blood, VP and general counsel for global meetings and events giant Maritz, to discover the top five contract issues planners should be aware of in the current environment, along with strategies to navigate them successfully.
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1. AI Restrictions and Transparency
“We’re seeing a lot of our clients putting in provisions restricting the use of AI in their agreements, and also planners navigating those waters,” Blood said. “I think, in general, people are experimenting with AI; they’re coming up with some really interesting and cool ways to use it, but I think there’s also a level of fear with AI right now. We see that from our clients, especially from clients and organizations that handle more sensitive data, like financial institutions, medical institutions.”
Blood added that organizations are starting to limit the use of AI and set policies regarding how and when it can be implemented in meetings, along with the need for transparency regarding its use. “People understand that it will be used,” she said. “I think they want it to be used for efficiencies, but they also want to know when and how, and be able to protect their data. We’re starting to see the initial trend of AI provisions showing up in contracts. Sometimes it’s you can’t use it at all; sometimes you can use it in certain cases.
“And it might be a question to ask downstream vendors as well if you’re sharing certain kinds of information and you are part of an organization that’s sensitive about it or has rules,” she continued. “You might want to start including that in RFPs and in discussions to understand how it’s used and make sure they’re comfortable with that.”
Blood added that the use of AI also may not be obvious, such as by third-party mobile apps during conferences.
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2. Privacy and Security
“Obviously, this issue has been around for a while, but it’s still a challenge, and I think bad actors are getting more sophisticated every day, such that it’s still important to be top of mind,” Blood said. “The No. 1 challenge is there are so many different laws and regulations to be aware of, and for most event planners, they’re pulling attendees from all 50 states, or a large number of them, and maybe different countries, so it can be hard to keep track of that regulatory landscape.”
Although this ungainly patchwork of regulations may seem too daunting, planners need to make an effort to keep up.
“I’m a big evangelist for ‘don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,’ and moving the needle toward compliance is great,” Blood said. “Even if you’re overwhelmed by the idea of getting 100% compliant, taking some actions to make sure that you’re complying with most of those laws—protecting data as much as you can—I think is really important.”
Blood recommended the following strategies:
- Minimizing the amount of data you collect.
- Purge data when you no longer need it.
- Make sure you’re transparent about when and how data is used.
Another part of the data equation is keeping the data you’ve collected safe, which is becoming even more of a challenge in the age of AI.
“It’s just being aware of things like training people for phishing emails; some of them are so sophisticated,” Blood warned, adding that much more strict European Union regulations are an even more acute issue to be aware of.
“It requires opt-in consent for a lot of things that are opt out in the United States,” she said.
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3. Sustainability
“We refer to this as ‘sustainability with teeth,’ in that these efforts have evolved to have more metrics and accountability,” Blood offered. “What we’re seeing more of is reporting requirements that say, ‘Tell us your carbon footprint and we want it to be better next year.’ And then metrics that say, ‘Here’s a target that you have for these things, and we expect you to meet it or there could be penalties. We’ve even seen some clients who have what they call a ‘carbon budget’ that is similar to their financial budget.”
4. Tariffs, Immigration and Government Funding
“While the impact of these is limited right now, I think it’s still top of mind for a lot of planners,” Blood said. “I think it’s interesting, because it’s impacting the industry not as much as some people think that it is. The actual numbers show that there’s impact in certain areas, not everywhere, but I think there’s uncertainty, and it’s always hard to write event contracts in any time of uncertainty.”
Long meeting lead times only compound this uncertainty.
“Because some of these event contracts are being drafted for events that will happen years into the future, anything that makes it less predictable is stressful,” she said. “What we’ve heard from our supplier partners is they are ready and willing to have those conversations to say, you know, ‘60% of our attendees are government employees’ or ‘60% of our budget comes from government funding. Let’s talk through that together and come up with a plan.’
“We’ve seen a lot of hesitancy to recognize force majeure for these instances,” she continued. “I think, with force majeure, we all have sort of PTSD from the pandemic. We’ve heard loud and clear from our supplier partners that they’re ready to have those conversations. They will work with people, but they don’t want a force majeure-style provision in their contracts. Not to say you can’t try, but I think that’s probably less [realistic].”
Immigration issues are always front and center in the hospitality industry, which oftentimes employs undocumented workers in service positions. Recent high-profile detentions of inbound international travelers to the U.S. has added another dimension: event attendees.
“In general, immigration and visa concerns have gotten a little harder over the last few years, even prior to the current administration,” Blood said. “Educate your attendees, make sure they know what the restrictions are, what papers they will need, what they might experience, and then work with local partners. We did an event recently in Canada and some folks were concerned, but we worked with local partners, and they were able to provide a lot of helpful information and a lot of reassurance about what it would be like, and the event was great. We didn’t really have any challenges at all, but there was some trepidation early and I think having those conversations and sort of leaning on those partners was really, really critical.”
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5. More Eyes on Contracts
“A thing I hear a lot from planners is that it’s just hard to get contracts across the finish line right now,” Blood said. “In some organizations, there’s a little bit more scrutiny on these contracts. I think because of the pandemic, because events got canceled…there’s more eyes that are looking at ‘What does this contract say, what’s the ability to walk away,
what does force majeure look like?’
“Overall, that’s healthy, but it can be time consuming,” Blood continued. “You’re getting more people to weigh in, more people to look. In general, a lot of people got burned during the pandemic and now we’re a little more knowledgeable about what can go wrong and a little more risk averse.”
While Blood said time should level this out, for now, more stakeholders—many with little events experience—are inserting themselves into the contract process.
“They’re weighing in but they don’t necessarily have the context of what is normal for attrition; what makes sense,” she said. “So, occasionally we will see lawyers from organizations say, ‘Well, we should be able to cancel the hotel agreement whenever we want for no penalty.’ Some of that is education and expectation-setting. Lead times have gotten shorter, and budgets have gotten smaller, while costs have gone up, and that just creates a lot of challenges overall where people are trying to accomplish more in a shorter period of time, and that can be hard to get through.”
Blood advises both parties start from a reasonable position, be very open about their important points and remember there is a human on both sides of the negotiating table.
“It always sounds like counterintuitive advice from me,” she said, “but sometimes what I find myself telling people is “Don’t get the lawyers involved too soon.’ Leaning on those relationships and having those sort of real human-to-human conversations moves the needle a lot.”
