Meetings Today Senior Contributor Jeff Heilman touched base with Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) Executive Director David Gibbons on the MCCA’s increase in group business and the future of the facility.

The continuing expansion of Boston’s business and tourism infrastructure has profoundly transformed the city’s identity. Greater Boston CVB President and CEO Pat Moscaritolo calls it “a revolution of opportunity,” which for groups is producing a major uprising.

If your attendees are being sequestered within the four bland walls of a cookie-cutter hotel to suffer through endless PowerPoints punctuated by flavorless breaks and networking events that rival watching paint dry, you’re going to want to mix it up by using a special venue. Meetings Today teamed up with Chuck Salem to profile some of the top off-site options available in Indiana.

Deb Gee of Lululemon shared her daily ritual winter tips for winter wellness with Meetings Today Director of Strategic Content Lori Tenny. 

As any planner knows, coming up with unique decor, food, drink and overall ambience to fit the objective of a gathering is always a challenge, but a welcome one if you do it mindfully and with intention, according to Deb Gee, experience designer with Lululemon. Weaving the season into events is a great place to start. Gee shares her winter toolkit to help out with event planning around the holidays whether for business or personal gatherings.

The rich history of California’s state capital, Sacramento, as well as the Central Valley cities to the south and national parks of the High Sierra, is not gone nor forgotten. Groups can warmly embrace the region’s past in off-site venues that tell stories of grand, earlier times.

The Kansas City metropolitan area boasts more than 33,000 hotel rooms, with an additional 4,500 keys planned by 2020. Cities on both sides of the Missouri River are experiencing growth and changes that are making the destination easier to access and more convenient to travel within.

Members of the UNITE HERE labor union, which represents hotel workers across Canada and the U.S., ratified an agreement with Marriott International to end their strike in Boston.

Hong Kong is on the move, literally and figuratively. The Asian business hub just took the wraps off two major projects that are enhancing connectivity: the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail, 16 miles of railway linking Hong Kong to China’s high-speed rail network. The projects put Hong Kong within convenient reach of cities in the Pearl River Delta (aka Greater Bay Area) and beyond, and with the bridge in place, travel time between the Mainland city of Zhuhai and Hong Kong is cut down drastically.

Martha Sheridan was hired as the president and CEO of the Greater Boston CVB.