Skift Take
As event technology companies continue to grow, they’re attracting interest from investors who see promise in the sector. The jury is still out on who will be the eventual winners in a super-fragmented global marketplace.
Following Cvent’s acquisition of Social Tables and Eventbrite going public last year, more investors are paying attention to event technology. Bizzabo and Gather, two of the more interesting players in the space, have raised some money.
I also put together a list of the most innovative people in corporate travel, and the event tech folks on there are up to some interesting things. Check it out below. You may end up using their services quite soon.
If you have any feedback about the newsletter or news tips, feel free to reach out to me via email at [email protected] or tweet me @sheivach.
— Andrew Sheivachman, Senior Editor
The Future of Events and Meetings
Bizzabo and Gather Raise Millions for Event Tech: Two event tech startups, Bizzabo and Gather, have raised millions in funding to help businesses and restaurants manage and grow events. The companies are benefiting from a 2019 Megatrend that Skift summarized as “real-world experiences gain value in an era of tech burnout.”
U.S. Travel to Cuba Faces Tighter Restrictions on Non-Family Visits: When the Trump administration took office in 2017, the popular wisdom was that it would eliminate U.S. travel to Cuba. The changes have turned out to be incremental, but now it appears that non-family travel to Cuba will be all but gone.
The Skift 2019 Corporate Travel Innovators List: Innovation is slow in corporate travel, mainly due to the entrenched legacy systems that undergird the sector and the complex web of financial incentives that power incumbents. These leaders are doing something different in a space defined by convention.
Around the Industry
Four Seasons Shows That Hospitality Can Be a Passport to a Global Career: Hospitality can be the gateway to a richly rewarding global career. But even some of the top brands aren’t making this sell well enough to the next generation of talent. Here’s how to do it.
Give Them a Sense of Place: As mobile phones and the attention economy melt away our brains, one way to reclaim more valuable experiences is to become more immersed in where you actually are. Meeting design can learn from this principle.
Las Vegas Resort Named for Developer’s Son Set to Open in 2022: In a thoughtful touch, real estate mogul Steven Witkoff is naming Drew Las Vegas after his late son who died of an opioid addiction, and Witkoff plans to use some of the revenues to fund a foundation that battles addiction. The resort will be a Marriott property on the north end of The Strip that will emphasize non-gaming options.
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Skift Senior Editor Andrew Sheivachman [[email protected]] curates the Skift Meetings Innovation Report. Skift emails the newsletter every Wednesday.
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Tags: meetings, meetingsiq
Photo credit: A woman registering for a conference. AllThings Open / Flickr