Steve Bova, CAE / Photo by Tori Soper Photography

Steve Bova, CAE, is the executive director of Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals (FICP)

At Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals (FICP), we are bullish about 2023 for several reasons. The year 2022 was a “recovery year” for the hospitality sector after it was devastated in 2020 and 2021 by the effects of COVID-19. The only industry more severely impacted was the airline industry — also part of the ecosphere of meetings and events. After nearly two years of little to no in-person business, the hospitality industry came roaring back in 2022, largely due to rebookings. Many hospitality companies, especially hoteliers and DMCs, struggled to keep pace with the demand of RFPs or meet high-service expectations as they were racing to return to full employment.

Like their corporate colleagues, financial and insurance meetings professionals are exhausted from rescheduling in-person meetings and booking new events while continuing to deliver on virtual and hybrid events, often with depleted staff.

My mantra through 2022 has been that we just need to get through this “bubble” of intense recovery. At the same time, many people foresee this pace to continue at least for the first half of 2023. Industry research reports vary in anticipating a full recovery to 2019 levels or higher in 2024 or even 2025. I am bullish on a strong back half of 2023 despite macroeconomic headwinds causing rising costs.

Having just competed the 2022 FICP Annual Conference in November, there was a positive vibe that “we’re definitely back.” And we should be positive. We’re a resilient, albeit conservative, industry that can validate the essential human need for meeting in person, not only for business growth and profitability, but also for communicating important information, developing relationships, enhancing team morale and recognizing top performers — elevating the strategic importance of meetings and events within organizations.

Despite ongoing challenges to our economy and worldwide influences, if we learned anything from the Great Recession, the organizations that don’t cut back on meetings and events usually outperform those or recover faster than those that cancel their events or significantly pare them back.

To paraphrase chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr., we market (meet) for the same reason pilots keep their engines running once they are off the ground. Momentum is critical in our industry, and 2023 is a year of great opportunity.

Meetings and Events Are Roaring Back, With More Emphasis on DEI and Sustainability

In fall 2022, FICP conducted a Pulse Survey among 80 financial and insurance meetings professionals and hospitality partners to gain a baseline understanding of organizational emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and sustainability and their relative impact on meetings and events. This year’s survey was driven by the FICP Influence Committee, with support by FICP’s new DEI Working Group.

Here is a glance at some of the results:

• DEI is a far more eminent focus for organizations than sustainability, yet both have increased focus for organizations recently.
• 84.6% of financial and insurance companies have a current focus on DEI. Only 10% of all respondents (meetings professionals and hospitality partners) say they do not anticipate their organizations to focus on DEI in the near term, a trend seen more strongly within hospitality organizations.
• Four out of 10 organizations have a chief diversity officer and/or a dedicated DEI Committee.
• 75% of organizations have changed their approach to meetings and events given the organizational focus on DEI, largely impacting who and what is covered on stage. More than half focus on diverse speaker selection and just under half have changed content selection to reflect DEI considerations.

As for sustainability:

• Two out of three say sustainability was a focus over the past year (62.5% of financial and insurance organizations and 72.7% of hospitality organizations).
• One out of four organizations have a chief sustainability officer.
• The top three sustainability concerns were 1) reducing food waste within the organization and/or at events; 2) selecting office building(s) that are LEED certified; and 3) eliminating single-use plastics. I&FMM