What to Expect for Meetings and Conventions in 2022
What to Expect for Meetings and Conventions in 2022
Business meetings and convention activity ceased during the height of the pandemic. The corporate world is now working on a way to move forward with corporate travel and eventually get it back to pre-pandemic levels.
How have corporate meetings and events changed due to the pandemic and its impact on business travel? Read on to discover what to expect for your next business meeting or convention.
Salespeople Will Prioritize Larger Events Instead of Smaller Sales Calls
The global pandemic forced all in-person meetings to cease for a year and a half. Now that the meetings and conventions industry looks forward to recovery, priorities will change. Going forward, it is expected that these small, in-person meetings will be moved online permanently.
Business travel is now going to come with a whole new set of protocols that must be met. These new travel protocols come with additional expenses and travel requirements that take time out of your business schedule. As a result, this will force the corporate traveler to prioritize the bigger events for business travel. At a large convention, you can cover much more ground with networking, leads, and meetings.
Bleisure Travel Will Help Recover Business Travel
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby predicts that business travel won’t fully recover until 2024. In the meantime, the in-person meetings industry is expected to recover quickly. The recovery of business travel will most likely “piggyback” on what is known as bleisure travel. Bleisure travel is when a corporate traveler will combine both business and leisure activities into one trip. This travel trend is predicted to come back strongly in 2022 and beyond.
Association Events Will Become More Popular
During the height of the pandemic, everyone missed the daily social interactions that we took for granted. Now that the meetings and events industry is starting back up, people are looking forward to getting back to that social interaction. Industry experts predict that event planners should pay attention to association events as people look to reconnect with old friends, classmates, and others. Everyone is suffering from Zoom meeting fatigue and looking forward to meeting up in-person again.
A Chance For Colleagues To Reconnect
The majority of the working population had to adapt to working from home during the pandemic. In the aftermath, some will remain to work from home. Workers began to miss the office camaraderie and realized that working from home can get quite lonely. People will be eager to meet up with their peers and colleagues again in-person. Event planners know that after the past brutal year of lockdowns, nothing would be more appealing than traveling to someplace great and reconnecting with everyone. If the event planners tune into this, they can play into this part of the equation and begin a market for this type of corporate trip.
Event Bookings are Increasing
The corporate world is ready to get back out there and head into the future of corporate travel. In fact, insiders are predicting that the meeting and conventions will be bigger than ever in 2022. Convention centers have reported an increase in bookings for next year and beyond.
Virtual Meetings and Conventions Are Not Going Away
Despite in-person meetings and conventions increasing forthcoming, the industry is still going to keep the momentum of virtual meetings going. For instance, in November 2020, World Travel Market, an annual travel media event in London, held its first 100-percent virtual conference. This came to fruition because of a cancellation of the live event as a result of the pandemic. In November 2021, World Travel Market will have a live conference at the Excel Center, plus a virtual meeting conference where Zoom meetings and seminars are scheduled.
Traveler’s Q can assist you and your company with all your corporate travel management needs. Contact a travel advisor today to get useful travel tips and event planning services to help your company navigate into the new future of event travel.
