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According to new research from the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, forecasters reported 53 percent confidence in the accuracy of their forecasts, but they were correct only 23 percent of the time.
Michelle Russell
Editor in Chief
Around this time last year — after a long spell of economic forecasting that turned out to be way off base — a CNBC article asked: “How can everyone be so lousy at predicting the future?”
There are a few answers to that question. For one, the article pointed out, forecasters bring their own biases to their work, which can lessen the quality of their predictions. They may simply go along with the rest of the pack by following what other forecasters are saying or pick out bits of data that support their own point of view while ignoring information that goes against it.
Second, the future is complicated and largely unknowable. “Events occur that are unpredictable and affect outcomes,” CNBC said. The economy is vulnerable to new shocks or surprises, like inflation, a war, or a cyberattack — never mind “a gigantic outlier like COVID.”
And yet another reason why forecasts can turn out to be overly rosy or pessimistic, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business: forecasters’ overconfidence. Forecasters reported 53 percent confidence in the accuracy of their forecasts, but they were correct only 23 percent of the time.
Of course, CNBC and Berkeley are referring to economists whose high-stakes forecasts about economic growth and employment drive decisions made by businesses, investors, and governments around the world. Convene’s Annual Industry Forecast, on the other hand, is confined to the business events sector — you know, that invisible industry that the Events Industry Council and Oxford Economics valued at $1.6 trillion in 2023.
In previous iterations of our annual forecast, we’ve given our audience the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about what the coming year will bring, based on research we curated on how conferences and conventions themselves were performing, as well as the sectors that intersect with those events — lodging, travel, technology, and the workplace.
This year, we took a different route. We covered the same sectors, but for each one, our editors identified one or two trends — based on their own research and interviews with event organizers over the past year — that they think have legs. Whether you think of these as leading economic indicators, editor’s picks, or insights for further consideration, they’re intended to help you adjust the lenses on your binoculars — knowing that the landscape keeps shifting — to see the path ahead more clearly.
Finding the Plotline
Aside from just relying on year-over-year comparisons — i.e., the numbers from our Annual Meetings Market Survey results — to tell the story of where we are and where we’re headed, we always spend time sifting through responses to open-ended questions.
Those words help us to take the temperature of our industry. This year, a few “r” words stated explicitly or implicitly rose to the top: resignation, over things like rising costs that are outside their control; resolve, to do everything they could to make their events deliver value; and resilience, as in, we’ve come through the biggest disruption to the events industry yet and we will find our way.
“The old playbook is not working for everyone anymore,” wrote one planner in response to the question of what is most worrisome or exciting about the future. “Therefore, we will see (already see) a wave of experientials, and new models of conducting business and designing experience.”
Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.