Everyone keeps asking these days: How bad is this going to get? My answer: You ain't see nothin' yet. Every week we're being hit with new layoffs and news of companies cutting their travel and meetings budgets. So what's next? I thought I'd take a crack at a few predictions for the remainder of this year:

• LinkedIn will become the new barometer for the troubles facing our industry, to the point where so many travel and meeting industry folks will sign up that it will catch the attention of its CEO, Reid Hoffman. He will then mention the uptick as an example of the power of his product during a prime-time news interview — right before announcing his IPO.

• Two well-known incentive firms will change take the word “incentive” out of their names. Even more fascinating, 1,549 resorts around the world will take the word “resort” out of their names.

• While green meetings took a front seat just last year, they are headed for the trunk. The green meeting standards initiative will suffer, with fewer people volunteering to help (as there are fewer people to help). Any recycling effort that costs a company money will be canned.

• The unprecedented level of cooperation between eight major meeting and travel industry associations to lobby Washington will result in the leaders of those groups (including Meeting Professionals International, Site (formerly the Society of Incentive and Travel Executives), the Professional Convention Management Association, and the National Business Travel Association) convening every quarter in ‘09. Every single CEO will show every time. The reality is that when it's critical, you still need a live meeting to get things done.

• The new austerity will guide choices of after-hours meeting activities, with DMCs scrambling to offer low-frills options, such as evenings around a campfire and … picnics. Anything with a corporate social responsibility angle will be embraced, and giving back will be the only PC way to get employees off site to have some fun.

• There will be a series of partnerships between hotel companies and videoconferencing vendors, similar to last year's between Marriott and Hewlett-Packard to make its Halo telepresence available at certain hotels. But few companies will use it because it's still too expensive.

• Independent meeting contractors will be hit hard, and many of the more senior folks will cut their losses and retire. Why? While the mantra within corporate America used to be “cut staff and outsource,” it's now “cut staff and add workload to existing staff's responsibilities.”

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