What is in this article?:
- Why Four Event Industry Association CEOs See a Vital Future
- What trends have had an impact on your association's meetings and how have you adapted?
- What must the industry do to better promote the value of meetings?
- How has competition affected the way you do business?
- How has globalization affected your business and growth?
- How has membership evolved?
- Given all the changes, is the meetings industry at a turning point?
The leaders of ASAE, International Association of Exhibitions and Events, Meeting Professionals International, and Professional Convention Management Association are bullish on meetings.
Given all the changes, is the meetings industry at a turning point?
Sexton:
I have never been more optimistic for the industry. I find these times energizing because they make peo-
ple more strategic; they make people think differently. They make people say, how do we change this to be more beneficial to our members? It’s very exciting.
Hacker:
It’s normal, natural, healthy evolution. It’s just incremental and non-disruptive change, and that’s the important thing. We’re not trying to dig ourselves out of some crisis that has been brought about by a change in the environment.
Graham:
There are always turning points—or, said a different way, change happens regularly. Nearly a decade ago when online learning was developed, the concern was that face-to-face meetings would go away. It didn’t happen. But what did happen was that online was added to face-to-face. We had the GSA uproar and previously TARP/AIG. There will always be issues to address. Through it all, human beings still want to connect in-person. I don’t see that changing.
D’Aoust:
I think we’re past the concept of a turning point. I don’t know that we’ll ever be in a position to stop and determine what a new turning point is! The new normal is that the speed of change is only going to increase. For me, this is what drew me to MPI, the opportunity to be part of a forward-looking, dynamic environment. ♦
