Skift Take

Tourism bureaus around the world are rallying their troops tomorrow to promote the economic impact of meetings and conventions with an unprecedented show of industry solidarity.

The weekly Skift Meetings Innovation Report defines the future of meetings and events by deciphering disruptive strategies that improve knowledge sharing.

The Future of Meetings + Events

Skift-MIRTourism bureaus around the world are banding together to promote the economic impact of meetings during the first annual Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID) tomorrow. The Meetings Mean Business Coalition (MMBC) and Convention Industry Council are spearheading the event in North America.

Here is a list of organizations participating in GMID and their scheduled advocacy initiatives for the day. Since 2009, the MMBC has collected meetings industry insight and data to inform business strategy for hotels and tourism bureaus. Building on that, GMID is designed to spread the message that “meetings mean business” to a larger audience on a global scale.

The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is one example of a convention bureau that has seen a big rise in convention business by successfully advocating for the value of meetings as an economic driver, both for buyers and suppliers. To continue that momentum tomorrow, the LVCVA is hosting local travel and business community members for a panel discussion in the new T-Mobile Arena that opened last week.

“We look at Global Meetings Industry Day as the culmination of years of effort on behalf of Las Vegas to talk about why meetings and face-to-face gatherings are important,” said Chris Meyer, VP of global business sales for the LVCVA. “No other community in the country is embedded or affected by the convention, meetings, trade show, and events industry as much as Las Vegas.”

Join a live webcast of the panel beginning at 2 p.m. PT tomorrow.

— Greg Oates, Senior Editor

Social Quote of the Day

“Sharing Economy – is it a lasting trend? Join the conversation at IMEX in Frankfurt: http://j.mp/1SBXv1B  #IMEX16

@IMEX_Group on Twitter

Hospitality + Tourism

London Is Promoting Its Intellectual Capital to Attract Conference Planners: The new “Capital of Cutting Edge” report is more of a positioning statement than research paper, describing why more conference planners should judge a city based on its network of knowledge professionals and advanced industry economy. Read more at Skift

New T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Signals Return of Large Hospitality Investment: Significant capital investments in Las Vegas hospitality have been few since the recession. The opening of T-Mobile Arena and adjacent developments, as well as record visitation to the city during the last two years, suggest the Strip has turned a corner. Read more at Skift

Charlotte Already Sees Impact of North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Bill on Convention Business: Tourism bureaus in North Carolina are losing significant convention business due to the governor’s new anti-LGBT law, so they need to start collecting as much data as possible to support a potential amendment. Read more at Skift

Cleveland’s Excitement for Republican Convention Crowds Wanes Because of Trump: Big events rarely offer the returns to cities to justify their costs. It’s better to build a less high-profile stable of events that don’t cost as much to pull off. Still, we’ll be watching. Read more at Bloomberg

Global Meetings Industry Day

Responses From the C-Suite on Why Meetings Matter: To demonstrate the important role that meetings play for business leaders across a wide variety of industries, Meetings Mean Business launched a new video series that showcases real life testimonies. Read more at Meetings Mean Business

A Review of Meetings Industry Advocacy in 2016: Meetings industry veterans take a look at how far we’ve come in advocating the value of meetings to outside stakeholders, and they discuss the volume of work still to be done. Read more at Convene

Education & Advocacy: A Roundup of Global Meetings Industry Day Events: From Stockholm to Mexico City to Phoenix, GMID events will bring meeting professionals together to draw attention to the important role of conventions, incentives and trade shows in building community and driving business. Read more at MeetingsNet

Next Generation Event UX

Check Out The 2016 #IMEXPitch Event Tech Startup Competition: The pitch event takes place at the IMEX Inspiration Hub in Frankfurt on April 19, 2016. A judging panel composed of event technology industry experts will vote and award the winner on the day of the competition, using polling numbers from the live audience to help inform their decision. Read more at IMEX Group

The Value of Brand Experience to Design Meetings & Events: Event marketers are constantly improving alignment of event and business strategy, optimizing event portfolios and spend, and capturing behavioral data that uncovers the whole story of ROI. Read more at Freeman

Meet the Collision Mentors: The VP of Intel, CEO of Foursquare, and More: Mentor Hours at the Collision conference in New Orleans this month are a series of pre-scheduled 15-minute meetings where Alpha and Beta startups get to meet a founder or business leader who’s done it all before. Read more at Collision

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The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift senior editor Greg Oates [[email protected]]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.

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Photo credit: Members of the Las Vegas hospitality and tourism community are hosting a live webcast on the state of the meetings industry for Global Meetings Industry Day. Las Vegas Sands Corporation

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