I would talk about the macro trends Peter Yesawich talked about at the PCMA Annual Meeting luncheon yesterday, except we already covered them pretty well when he gave about the same talk last year (article is here).
Yup, looks like the economy,changing demographics, time crunch, and technology changes still may impact meetings. Yawn. The panel afterward was ok, but didn't add much to the party. Except at the very end, when Yesawich asked the panelists who they thought would be elected U.S. president, and what that person's election would mean to the hospitality/travel/meetings industry. It was really interesting because two of the four panelists were Canadian, but I digress.
All four panelists (Chris Cahill from Fairmont, Rick Meadows from Holland America, Christine Duffy from Maritz, and Gregg Saretsky from Alaska Airlines) seemed to think the Democrats would win the presidency, though which specific Democrat was up for grabs. And they seemed pretty united also in the belief that economic and international challenges will be the key factors, whoever is at the helm.