Skift Take
Convention centers across the U.S. have worked to refresh and develop their offerings as business has increased in recent years. Now they're looking to attract large corporate events across multiple venues instead of traditional consumer-facing events and conventions.
As established convention centers receive long-overdue renovations and expansions, these destinations look to attract a different kind of event business.
Skift Tourism Reporter Dan Peltier lays out the rationale for destinations to attract corporate groups and conventions instead of consumer events. Conferences spanning multiple venues across a city, along with trade shows in general, are the sweet spot for these destinations with revamped products.
The bigger, the better, in other words.
Check below for the story, and for the rest of the brainfood you need on meetings innovation this week.
If you have any feedback about the newsletter or tips, feel free to reach out via email at [email protected] or tweet me @sheivach.
— Andrew Sheivachman, Business Travel Editor
The Future of Meetings and Events
New Convention Centers Are Pivoting Toward Trade Shows Over Consumer Events: Destinations like Miami and Anaheim aren’t turning their backs on the leisure travel business that they grew up on. But they also don’t want their leisure reputations to overshadow their new convention center capabilities. That means they and other destinations are following new strategies to grow business travel.
Planners Don’t Want Tech to Ruin Their Events: How much event tech is too much event tech? A poll by Meeting Planners International found that planners are becoming more wary of technology solutions, even if virtual meeting and livestreaming attendance have increased.
Marriott Makes Rewards Points Less Valuable: Planners are going to have to book much more business to earn the same number of loyalty points in 2018. Marriott, once again, makes a business decision at odds with the desires of event professionals.
Around The Events Industry
Smart Hotel Guest Rooms Are Almost Here: The smart guest room of the future is still in development. A strong return on investment for hotel owners who invest in updated technology, however, will help push these innovations into the mainstream.
Someone Crashed a Dozen Conferences in a Week: Turns out it’s not the number of events you crash, it’s the chill and diverse friends you make along the way.
Businesses Turn to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Events: Why leave sourcing and attendee interaction to intuition and tradition when technology can help predict better ways for your event to succeed?
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Skift Business Travel Editor Andrew Sheivachman [[email protected]] curates the Skift Meetings Innovation Report. Skift emails the newsletter every Wednesday.
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Tags: meetings, meetings and events, meetingsiq, technology
Photo credit: Destinations like Miami are hoping to increase the size and scope of events they attract, particularly trade shows and conferences that involve multiple venues. Miami Beach Convention Center