Five learnings from MPI’s Meetings Outlook

Sellers’ market. We have seen that clearly in the USA for a few years, and it has been clearly coming to Spain to, as anyone booking a conference in a hotel in a big city will have noticed in the form of higher prices. “Meeting space is scarce, both short-term and long-term”, says a planner. This comes as the market is experimenting some growth (54% of planners predict higher budget for next year, while 18% expect lower), even though in the qualitative comments, various planners stress that budgets are growing very moderately.

Uberization of HR? Permanent staffing is growing very little: 30% of organisations plan to grow their teams of full-timers, while 20% plan to reduce it. This is clearly limited growth… The idea of a “jobless recovery” looks like a reality. Interestingly, companies are resorting increasingly to hiring people on a project basis: 42% of organizations will increase their use of contracted staff, while only7% will reduce it. The Uber model is the future of events? Actually it seems to be the present!

The headache of allergies and diets. Your brother-in-law is vegan, your neighboor is muslim, your son is allergic to gluten, you are cutting down on carbs… So you wont be surprised that F&B prices are ticking up, as added costs for meals tailored to dietary re¬strictions contribute to costs. In keeping with current dietary trends, more attendees are asking for gluten-free, low-cholesterol, low-carb, vegetarian and vegan options. “We’re simply seeing a stronger rhetoric towards making sure that what is provided is as hypoallergenic as possible, as culturally acceptable as possible and as dietarily flexible as possible,” says a professional.

Short and crispy! The move towards short presentations seems to be complete: 84% of respondents identified the ideal length of a conference presentation with a single speaker as 20 or 30 minutes.

Purely American issues. Just to remind European planners of the specifics of US event planning, let us just remind you that 30% of respondents are avoiding destinations with laws prohibiting universal restroom use (the possibility to use the bathroom of the sex you identify with, an issue for transgender people and 19% are avoiding locations with more liberal handgun laws. We are far from that…