Skift Take

A growing number of event tech companies and content creators are developing advanced VR and 360-degree video platforms to help planners better immerse themselves in prospective event venues and meetings destinations.

The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is a weekly newsletter defining the future of business events by deciphering disruptive strategies that improve engagement and knowledge sharing. Subscribe.

The Future of Meetings & Events

As I’ve covered many times in the past, there’s a serious lack of quality online content to help meeting and event planners educate themselves about destinations, hotels, and compelling event venues. Things are getting better but the volume and variety of rich meetings-specific content is still way behind the leisure travel sector.

So I reached out to senior executives at YouVisit, Matterport, and Kapow, which are all developing advanced virtual reality, 360-degree, and 3D-immersion video platforms to give planners more visual information to better source and design their programs.

“We’re assembling the largest collection of unique corporate event ideas online, identifying what works, and building out an online marketplace that delivers on the demand for customized events,” Chris Brown, president of Chicago-based Kapow, told me. “You can’t find these types of experiences or this level of detailed venue information on OpenTable.”

For more on these three online innovators, check out the first two stories below.

— Greg Oates, Senior Editor

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Next-Generation Event UX

YouVisit Houston

Travel Brands Experiment With Virtual Reality as Consumer Adoption Lags: Companies like YouVisit and Matterport are creating VR videos and other immersive video formats that they say are driving exponentially higher engagement levels between travel brands and consumers, including meeting planners. Read more at Skift

The Future of Automating Corporate Event and Experience Design: Corporate events planners have been slow to use automated event venue booking sites, but Kapow hopes to change that by embedding 3D video and fun group experiences into the mix. Are event planners ready to make the jump to booking online? Read more at Skift

7 Ways Continual Learning Keeps Companies Innovative and Relevant: Here are seven stories, including one of ours about the rise of airport cities as knowledge hubs, emphasizing the value of shared learning in professional organizations. Read more at E-180

8 Steps of the Live Engagement Marketing Evolution: Finally, event marketers have the power to measure the impact of every facet of their events, including audience and sponsor engagement. And yet, many marketers haven’t adopted the tools that will enable them to showcase the value of their events. Read more at DoubleDutch

Douglas Rushkoff: Has Technology Failed Us? The natural successor to philosopher of communication theory Marshall McLuhan, Rushkoff was one of the first adopters of cyber culture but quickly saw how big business overturned the promise of the digital age in favor of making money. Read more at 52 Insights

Tourism & Hospitality

ICCA Captures Record Number Of International Association Meetings Taking Place In 2015: ICCA captured a record number of 12,076 rotating international association meetings taking place in 2015 — the largest number of association meetings collected in the year after the meetings took place, ever. This year, Berlin replaced Paris as the top city convention destination worldwide. Read more at ICCA

Prague Rolls Out New Mobile App for Meeting Planners: The free app, developed by the Prague Convention Bureau and Prague City Tourism, offers basic information about the city, the types of conference venues available, and an overview of local hotels and restaurants. Read more at International Meetings Review

Interview: Virgin Hotels CEO on Why He’s in the Entertainment Business: Virgin Hotels is attempting to find the right design and programming balance that caters to attendees within different age groups who share the same lifestyle values. Read more at Skift

Interview: Cosmopolitan Hotel Las Vegas CEO on Celeb Chefs and Youthful Brands: The evolution of Las Vegas as a lifestyle and entertainment destination is almost complete, but all of the hotels on the strip need to constantly evolve their design and culinary programming to remain competitive in both the events and leisure travel sectors. Read more at Skift

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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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Tags: meetingsiq

Photo credit: YouVisit develops interactive virtual reality content around events like Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Russia 2016. MBFW

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