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Annual Events Industry Forecast
Our usual approach to Convene‘s Annual Industry Forecast is to cast a wide net, gathering a variety of data related to the business events industry, including travel, lodging, technology, and the workplace. This year, we took a different tack. Instead of those wide-ranging forecasts, Convene editors wrote succinct trends reports for each sector. We’ve sifted through the research to come up with a few signposts to help you navigate the year ahead, whatever course it takes. And, as always, the Forecast includes our Annual Meetings Market Survey, which gives us a strong sense of where we stand at this moment in time — the ups, the downs, the challenges, and our overall mood.
Employer demand for “green talent” — professional skills that will help combat climate change — is on the rise across industries, according to a recent study.
It doesn’t take the most tech-savvy person to recognize the biggest trend for the future of work for event organizers: AI. It’s not even the future — it’s already here. In January 2024, a white paper commissioned by The Hague & Partners Convention Bureau and Ottawa Tourism that surveyed 100 association planners found that 63 percent of associations and not-for-profits were already using AI in event organizing, even though they were working with limited knowledge — 85 percent had no budget for AI training at the time, showing a desire to learn on the job in the name of efficiency.
Global DMC Partners (GDP) published a Q3 Meetings and Events Survey that showed how AI adoption among meeting planners has grown in the last year, with nearly half of planners now using these tools in their day-to-day work, as opposed to only three out of 10 at the end of 2023. Planners reported using AI for a number of tasks — 84 percent used chatbots like ChatGPT and CoPilot to aid in their work, while 44 percent used grammar checkers and rewording tools like Grammarly to sharpen their writing. “Respondents highlighted using AI,” the report said, “for content improvement, venue selection, and marketing support.”
As AI’s capabilities grow, so too will planners’ use for it in their everyday work. For now, many of us think of it for limited uses — compiling Google searches, organizing data, and enhancing content creation. But we’re seeing use cases among planners expand to include tasks like attendee acquisition and next-gen engagement.
Sustainability Skills
The future of work across industries and professions not only requires AI proficiency but an understanding of how to meet the challenges of global warming. Employer demand for “green talent” — professional skills that will help combat climate change — is on the rise across industries, according to a recent study from LinkedIn. From 2023 to 2024, global demand for green talent grew by nearly 12 percent, but supply only grew by 6 percent. “This disparity means that the green talent gap is not only growing, but accelerating,” according to the report. Globally, job seekers with green skills have a 55-percent higher hiring rate compared to the workforce overall.
What about green skills in the events industry? According to GDP’s Q3 Meetings and Events Survey, fewer than half of North American planners incorporated sustainability elements all or most of the time in their events, vs. more than three-quarters of international planners. This reflected a wider gap between North American and international planners than in the previous GDP survey, indicating a growing emphasis on sustainability for international planners.
Meeting Planner Employment on the Rise
Employment of meeting, convention, and event planners is projected to grow 7 percent from 2023 to 2033 — faster than the average for all occupations. Approximately 16,500 openings for meeting, convention, and event planners are projected each year over the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Higher Budgets at Last?
Since the pandemic, meeting professionals have struggled with significant budgetary constraints made even more challenging when dealing with inflation. But according to a recent global study from Amex GBT of more than 500 meeting professionals, 66 percent of planners say spend is growing.
The fight against inflation also continues, with two out of five of respondents indicating they changed their destination or lodging to accommodate cost increases, the same number holding more virtual meetings, and 29 percent holding fewer events overall.
Casey Gale is managing editor at Convene.