From Skift Meetings, by Andrea Doyle: The Trump administration’s tariff policies are sending ripples through global trade, and in the process, they are impacting the global trade show business, said Kai Hattendorf, CEO of HTF Business Events Expertise, and the former CEO of UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry. “If permanent, this isn’t…
From Skift Meetings: Meeting professionals have been navigating a landscape where access, funding, and conference attendance are no longer guaranteed, said Pat Schaumann, president of Schaumann Consulting Group. Schaumann is also the director of Meeting Professional International’s Healthcare Meeting Compliance Certificate (HMCC) program. In 2025, the U.S. was expected to host over 1.5 million medical…
From Boardroom: For decades, organisations operated on a simple premise: to generate profit. Yet in today’s fragmented world, where societal and environmental concerns weigh heavily on decision-making, financial performance alone no longer suffices. In response, BESydney has emerged as a leader in championing business events that prioritise long-term impact over short-term gain, turning meetings into…
From Smart Meetings: Four years into an experiment to replace an annual spring event in Washington, D.C., with a collaborative concentration of events organizations all gathering in the same place, Business Events Industry Week (BEIW) has built some popular must-attend features and announced that other pieces will shake off, either going away altogether or moving….
From AMI: The UK’s ambition to become a world-leading destination for international business events has been dealt a significant setback following a 41 per cent cut in funding to VisitBritain from the government’s GREAT programme. The announcement, made on 1 April, will see VisitBritain’s ‘GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland’ destination promotion programme budget cut from…
From Skift Meetings: As U.S.-Canada tariffs take hold and cross-border meeting attendance dips, one veteran planner is helping associations rethink US-Canada event strategies. Some associations are moving events from the US to Canada, where favorable exchange rates, easier visa processes, and lower costs make it an appealing alternative. As the US dollar weakens under new…
By Kai Hattendorf: 2024 was the best year ever for the trade show industry globally by revenues. 2025 likely won’t be. Uncertainties around an aggressive, tariffs-driven challenge to global trade from the new U.S. administration are shaking markets and economies around the world. If high import tariffs announced by the U.S. administration are here to…
From Skift Meetings: Featuring Nicola Kastner, CEO of Event Leaders Exchange (ELX), and Kevin Hinton, managing director, group travel, at U.S. Travel Association, this week’s Skift Meetings webinar had one overriding theme — uncertainty. It took Skift Meetings Executive Editor Andrea Doyle several minutes just to describe the numerous repercussions of Trump administration changes so…
From AMI: The Australian Business Events Association (ABEA) and the International Association of Professional Congress Organisers (IAPCO) have announced a new three-year Strategic Partnership, with joint research and white paper development at the heart of their collaboration. Under the agreement, both associations will co-author a white paper and share relevant industry research and studies with…
From Global Destination Sustainability Movement: If business events’ profits were a country, they’d be in the top 15 in the world. The Events Industry Council notes that “the $1.62 trillion of total GDP supported by global business events would rank the sector as the 13th largest economy globally.” We’ve seen encouraging progress from this vital…
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