2014 EIBTM Trends Watch Report Presented

November 21, 2014

The 2014 EIBTM Trends Watch Report as presented by Rob Davidson of MICE Knowledge reflects the upbeat tone of confidence widely demonstrated this year by companies and organizations operating in the global meetings and events industry.

Highlights of the report show that most of the key market segments in the corporate meetings sector — information and communications technology, automotive, pharmaceuticals and construction — have experienced growth in 2014, boosting the demand for corporate conferences, product launches and training events. The developing world, in particular China and the Middle East, is where growth has been most significant. The incentive travel sector also has seen a resurgence in 2014, with convincing evidence of growth in demand, rising budgets and the use of a greater variety of destinations for the hosting of events.

Greater levels of confidence have been noted this year among planners of international associations conferences, with evidence of increasing budgets and attendance levels. Cities in Europe and Asia are particularly successful at winning these events, although Australasia and the Middle East are increasingly asserting themselves as destinations for international association conferences.

As demand has grown this year, so has the supply of facilities for meetings and events, with expansion in many world regions of the hotel stock and major new convention centers such as Krakow in Poland and Nigeria’s first dedicated international convention center, the Calabar International Convention Centre. This expansion in supply has been matched by the creation of a number of new convention bureaus from Hangzhou in China to Spain’s Costa Brava, with the aim of winning meetings and events for their destinations in an increasingly competitive market environment.

Modest levels of growth are forecast in 2015 for the global economy as a whole, although that growth will be most significant in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. For the meetings and events industry, forecasters are practically unanimous in their predictions that 2015 will witness continuing expansion. Some even predict that in a number of world regions — the U.S. and parts of Europe — we will see a return to a sellers’ market, as demand outstrips supply in some key city destinations.

But 2015 will not be without its risk factors, which may create as yet unforeseen challenges for the meetings and events industry — particularly on the international scale. These include the risk of escalating conflicts in the Middle East and in Eastern Ukraine; the Ebola virus crisis and the threat of a return to recession in the Euro zone.

The Trends Watch Report is available to download from www.eibtm.com/trendswatch.

Note: Reed Travel Exhibitions has announced that it has undergone a re-brand of the IBTM portfolio which will now become “ibtm events – connections mean everything”. At the same time six of the current eight events will also have a new brand image and logo identifying them by region (excluding AIME and ICOMEX). Notably, EIBTM is to become “ibtm world” in line with its status as a global industry event.

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