Meetings and events returned in a big way in 2022, particularly in the second half of the year. And although we’re not entering the fourth year of the pandemic, Covid is no longer hampering meeting efforts the way it did at the beginning.
In-person reigned supreme once again, with virtual and hybrid options largely taking a backseat. In 2022, Questex brought its audiences back together in several key markets and continued to build on the innovation that has taken place during the pandemic.
Here, eventprofs and executives from across the Questex portfolio — including CEO Paul Miller — share how they’re managing ongoing challenges to the industry, what they’re most looking forward to next year, and the biggest meeting and event trends to look out for in 2023.
Although this year was a marked improvement over 2021, it wasn’t all smooth sailing — what were the biggest challenges your team faced this year? Do you expect them to persist next year?
Paul Miller, CEO, Questex
On the whole, Questex had a terrific year posting 40% growth from 2021 and a better year than the 2019 benchmark. Where we had our largest challenge was at a handful of tradeshows that have a significant international presence of exhibitors/attendees. I do think that these are the types of products that will take the longest to recover from the pandemic
Alexi Huntley Khajavi, Group President, Hospitality, Travel & Wellness
This year was an incredibly strong year with some of our events outperforming even 2019 levels. While we were all incredibly pleased to be delivering world class events again, there were a number of challenges. First and foremost, labor is still an issue for us internally as well as externally with contractors and vendors. Nobody truly knew what 2022 would look like so in some areas we were still understaffed and filling those roles takes time and the talent pool is limited. The other challenge was the pace of inflation and the challenge of costs are rising faster than what price increases can keep up with. To some degree, I expect both labor and inflation to persist into 2023 but not as aggressively as 2022.
Jill Birkett, Vice President, Wellness Group
The biggest challenge our team faced this year was staff burnout and turnover. Since 2021 was so uncertain and many events continued to cancel or delay, conversations with many customers were contentious through 2021. The difficulties of 2021 bled into the first half of 2022 resulting in staff burnout and staff departures. The upside of that is that although we almost completely replaced a team involved in producing our beauty and spa events, we are in a better place with positive energy and new ideas. So it ties into the “when one door closes, another one opens” philosophy and we are in a strong position for 2023.
Joe Stather, Vice President, Operational Real Estate
There was an expectation, at the outset of the year, that delegates would be slow to return following the pandemic, given fears around international travel and social mixing. However, the sector that we serve, Hospitality Investment, was eager to lead by example and demonstrate to the wider-public that travel could be done safely and ultimately demonstrated that deals are indeed best done in person.
The impact of inflation is widespread, but I’d argue that it has hit our industry more than others. Emerging from the pandemic, suppliers that had survived the downturn were eager to take any business they could, and the pricing power sat firmly with us as the buyer of services required to floor our events. However, as the demand from event companies has recovered more broadly, and the number of suppliers remains lower than pre-pandemic, choice is limited and pricing power has shifted back to the supplier, including venues, AV companies, etc. This has been compounded by a general increase in labour and transport costs, for example, all of which is reflected in the large annual increases impacting our event cost bases. We are working tirelessly to demonstrate the value that we provide to delegates and sponsors, to increase our prices and offset these strong inflationary headwinds.
Related to the above, rising interest rates have also been a challenge. Tightening of monetary policy to reduce the rate of inflation has had a material impact on the cost of equity and debt. This has resulted in a hiatus in investment activity, including the buying, selling and development of hospitality assets. A lack of deal flow has started to result in lower levels of opportunity or income for our target audience: hospitality investors, lenders, advisors, etc. which has a knock-on impact on their spending and marketing budgets. As such, we are focused on demonstrating the quality of our platform as part of a market share strategy, to ultimately drive continued growth against the tide. Our expectation, and that of hospitality investors, is that markets will re-price and stabilise, and conditions will therefore ‘normalise’ in the year ahead.
What are some of the biggest trends in meetings and events that you foresee going into next year?
Paul Miller
The entrance of technology into the industry is broad based trend that will continue to impact the industry at all levels. From AI driven content creation to data driven meeting curation, the industry will need to embrace a tech driven entrepreneurial spirit that encourages year-round interaction with the communities they serve. The classic view of technology entering any industry is that incumbents over-estimate the speed of disruption, relax when they see that they have not been disrupted heavily but then underestimate the eventual impact technology has on the industry.
Alexi Huntley Khajavi
I think the flight to quality will persist and only get stronger. Not only have people changed their traveling habits to less but more meaningful business trips but businesses are consolidating their marketing spend with platforms that own first party data and convene the true decision makers in that sector. The pandemic gave us the opportunity to cull our portfolio around audiences that truly engage with us 365 days a year and those are in fact the markets that are out-performing 2019 levels as professionals and brands in those markets attend and sponsor only the flagship events in their respective industries.
Jill Birkett
In terms of trends for 2023 meetings, a focus on experiences will continue to be central to success. Unless you are speaking about an event that is simply a conference, I’d go so far as to say “content has been dethroned as king” and “experience” is the new king! “Experience” needs to include both structured and unstructured networking opportunities. “Experience” ideally includes the ability to try something, learn from others, enjoy communing with like-minded industry professionals. People want to learn from experiences, not just from someone talking to them, showing them a presentation.
What are you most looking forward to in 2023?
Paul Miller
I’m truly looking forward to seeing Questex continue to innovate and deliver the industry leading NPS scores we have received from our stakeholders in 2022. I believe that we are at the beginning of a disruptive era for our industry that the BtoB print industry experienced about 20 years ago — it is an incredibly exciting time!
Alexi Huntley Khajavi
The meetings and events industry got their world rocked in 2020 and 2021 — despite how awful it was, I like that it has created a lot of innovation and creativity about how we deliver information and convene buyers and sellers. I’m looking forward to continuing to push the boundaries on those two core components of what we do.
Jill Birkett
There is much to look forward to in 2023: we have developed new pavilions, activities and education opportunities in all our events and so seeing the audience delight in those new experiences is going to be fun! Additionally, we expect industry professionals from abroad to be returning to our U.S.-based events and in our European events, they will no doubt attract an even larger base of attendees as almost all travel restrictions in these regions have been removed. Even though we all hear concerns regarding recession, I also hear and have seen research pointing to strength in many economic areas, so even if 2023 starts slightly rough, the second quarter and onward should show strength. We are “full steam ahead” with excitement for 2023.
Joe Stather
Experience is the new social and emotional currency and sits at the heart of our audience’s hospitality investment and development strategies. As such, we’re planning to launch new, experiential activations within our events, thus aligning with the industry that we serve, to create deeper connections between delegates, our content, and sponsors. These activations will be curated around the themes that are of utmost importance to our audience based on feedback from our Advisory Board, such as F&B and ESG, and will include product samples, best in class exhibitors, and a mixture of content formats delivered by topic experts, all in an immersive environment with its own unique identity. I’m really looking forward to seeing how these activations are received by our delegates and sponsors, and they’re an opportunity for our team to get creative.