On Wednesday, May 6, the meetings and hospitality industry celebrated Global Meetings Industry Day with local gatherings in cities ranging from Washington D.C. to Calgary to Frankfurt to Hong Kong.
Online, Meeting Professionals International hosted an eight-hour program with more than two dozen mini-sessions that were educational for planners in how they build meetings, and also in how they promote the power of meetings to their stakeholders.
Meetings Today reporters Rob Carey, Tyler Davidson, Taylor Smith and Maddie Willis attended several of the online sessions, and have compiled 20 takeaways for planners to use as they coordinate and promote their in-person events.
Outlook for the Business Events Sector in a Tumultuous Economy
Adam Sacks from research firm Tourism Economics led this session and delivered the following:
- The labor market is “slow to fire, slow to hire.” Job growth is down considerably versus 2025 but layoffs are down as well, especially outside of the tech sector. So, planners might not have to worry about losing their jobs but there’s no additional help coming for them—especially from the supplier side, where the labor market is particularly lean and generally less experienced. However, AI will lift productivity rates, which benefits planners.
- Inflation rose in April 2026 to 3.3% on an annual basis. Further, wages are outpacing inflation, so supplier costs will rise.
- Also, energy prices have risen 12.5% since the start of 2026, and jet fuel much more than that. So, although air passenger numbers have risen a bit this year, that’s not likely to continue—and high jet-fuel prices are sure to hurt travel budgets for events.
- Overall hotel-room demand rose 2.0% in Q1 2026. Group demand also rose by nearly 2% in Q1. As a result, occupancy and room rates are rising.
- RFP activity is encouraging, though events over the next one to three years might have lower attendance. RFP activity is up noticeably versus Q1 2025, but total group room-nights are down slightly.
- 41% of planners say the perception of meetings in their organizations is significantly higher than in the past. Therefore, despite price turbulence, Sacks expects the tailwinds to prevail over the headwinds in the meetings market.
The Near-Term Future for Tech in Planning Events
Rachel Andrews, global head of meetings and events for Cvent, led this session and offered the following:
- The industry is moving toward practical impacts with AI, in that AI is taking on the tasks that eat up planners' time: drafting agendas and run-of-shows; generating stakeholder feedback summaries and reports; analyzing contract clauses and risk areas; and more. This frees up planners to focus on strategy, experience design and bringing about desired attendee behaviors.
- AI can handle repetitive work with custom agents that planners can easily build themselves. Because of this, planning will be more data-driven than ever but can be more flexible in experience design. “There is real art to this work, so let technology free you up to be an experience artist,” she said.
- Proving outcomes, not just assessing attendee feedback, is critical now. Intent-driven planning will make executives see meetings as a strategic advantage, not a cost center—and the planner will be seen as quite valuable to the organization, too.
The Future of Our Workforce: Younger Planners
Annette Gregg, CEO of Society for Incentive Travel Excellence; Amani Roberts, keynote speaker and professional DJ; Courtney Stanley, keynote speaker and professional moderator; and Taylor Smith, content manager for Meetings Today, held a panel discussion on this topic. Here’s their best advice for engaging younger planners:
- Create intentional belonging and mentorship opportunities for young professionals by personally welcoming them, facilitating introductions and helping them build meaningful industry connections instead of expecting them to already have the ability to “just network.”
- Give emerging talent a voice early by inviting them into conversations, encouraging creative input and offering opportunities beyond traditional linear career paths to help unlock innovation and retention.
- Design training, onboarding and engagement experiences with shorter, more interactive formats that reflect how younger generations learn and communicate; they grew up in highly digital environments.
- Foster growth by creating safe feedback loops, including “reverse reviews,” where younger employees can share what support, resources or leadership changes they feel would help them succeed.
- Make careers in meetings and events more appealing by using exciting job titles, clearly showcasing career possibilities, and highlighting the creativity, impact and variety within the industry.
Social Media Strategy and Extending an Event’s Life
Chey Haehnlein, marketing manager at Meeting Professionals International, led this session and provided these ideas:
- Build a simple, intentional social media plan that supports every phase of the event life cycle, over several months or all year long.
- It is common for an event to hit what Haehnlein calls a “reach ceiling” where event content and contacts do not go beyond the walls of the venue. To grow an event’s life span, she uses this three-phase content plan:
- Build anticipation: Unify hashtags early and create a narrative before the event starts.
- Expand in real time: Dedicate a person to create content on site. Post live and engage with comments actively.
- Extend the life: Post recap content 24 to 48 hours after the event to keep the conversation going. Then, create or encourage specific conversation threads in the weeks and months after that.
- Lastly, when it comes to social strategy, highlighting an event’s impact is important because it helps motivate and strengthen the event’s community. “Social media is not a megaphone, it's a conversation,” Haehnlein said.
