The Future of Meetings

American economist Paul Romer once said that the difficulty of predicting the future is that "possibilities do not add up, they multiply." There is no question that technological innovation is moving at warp speed and driving global changes across every economic sector, from agriculture to infrastructure. In the past five years, its impact on the meetings industry has been enormous. Electronic RFPs, increasingly sophisticated meetings software, a dizzying array of apps and social media platforms are now par for the event-planning course.

There are, however, mega trends on the horizon that will have further dramatic impact on meetings. Technology will continue to dominate, but rapid globalization will see emerging markets become major meeting destinations, and hotels and convention centers will push the boundaries of innovative design and sustainability. At the same time, providing meaningful content that appeals to multiple generations, across different learning styles and expectations, will become even more critical. In short, as attendees' expectations grow, engineering an exciting, diverse and creative event is going to get a whole lot more challenging.

What follows is a look at four trends, culled from the predictions of experts, forecasters and futurists, that will shape the future of meetings and events in the next five to 10 years.


Convention centers reimagined 
In January of this year, a team of architects from Kansas City, Mo.-based Populous, a worldwide architecture and design firm, traveled to Chicago to host a workshop on the future of convention center design at the Professional Convention Management Association's Convening Leaders Conference. They sat down with planners from across the globe to get input on the challenges they were facing and what they would like convention centers of the future to have in order to meet their evolving needs.

One infrastructure initiative floated for urban areas promoted the idea of vertical convention center towers. Each tower would comprise four stacked units, each with its own exhibit space, ballroom and meeting areas. They could be combined or sold individually for different events. That design, says Michael Lockwood, architect and senior principal at Populous, who was part of the team, "would give each event its own sense of place, instead of feeling like one event in a much larger facility."

Other ideas centered on learning styles and wellness, including the introduction of more natural light to meeting spaces, creating more social hubs, putting speakers in prefunction areas rather than on a stage, and food and beverage stations that transition from lunch café to evening cocktail lounge. Also on the short list were "teleportation pods" equipped with comfortable seating to allow users private face time with colleagues or family; and opportunities for physical fitness, like bike-share programs and rock-climbing walls.

"As architects, we will ultimately design these facilities," says Lockwood. "But as collaborative designers, we look to our nonarchitect partners to creatively shape the future with us."

 

Populous is the architectural design team behind the $350 million renovation of the Los Angeles Convention Center. When completed in 2020, it will extend the center right into the city's LA Live District and feature four times more natural light and lots of open spaces, including an outdoor ballroom and landscaped public areas. In tandem, the city is retrofitting 4,500 miles of streetlights with new technology that responds to what's going on in the vicinity. For instance, lights might blink if an ambulance is on its way, or brighten for pedestrians after a ball game.

Similarly, while the design of the $500 million expansion of the Miami Beach Convention Center includes cutting-edge features like a huge vortex-shaped media screen in the lobby, it also embraces the city as an outdoor destination. Plans call for outdoor meeting space, tropical gardens and lawns for group games, as well as several pavilions and shaded gardens. The expansion should wrap in January 2018.

Evolving hotel design 
Hotels will keep introducing increasingly advanced technology, from high-tech multi-use lobby spaces and robot butlers to sci-fi amenities like fingerprint and retina scans for room entry and the ability to control room temperature and lighting from smartphones.

Some hotels, such as the ultra-contemporary 431-room NH Collection Eurobuilding in Madrid, Spain, already offer a 3-D telepresence system in so-called Smart Rooms, allowing meeting attendees to interact with people remotely via hologram. "Our plan is to continue to increase the number of Smart Rooms in our other hotels in Europe that do a lot of meetings business," says Rufino Pérez, chief commercial officer for Madrid-based NH.

Other innovative design elements gradually rolling out in the marketplace include smaller guest rooms with larger bathrooms, to make them more spa-like. Mike Tiedy, senior vice president, global brand design and innovation, at Stamford, Conn.-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, says positioning the lobby as the place to work and connect has allowed the chain's select-service brands, such as Aloft and Element, to shrink the size of guest rooms to an essentials-only model. "The room becomes a comfy nest with everything you need at your fingertips," he says.

In countries such as China and Dubai, architects and engineers are pushing the boundaries of infrastructure design by building hotels in more nontraditional settings. It is all part of a fantastical approach to viewing a hotel stay as a full-blown experiential event.

In Songjiang, China, the lavish 400-room Waterworld Hotel is being carved into the edge of an abandoned quarry, along a man-made lagoon. Its lobby, several restaurants and many public areas will be beneath the water. And Dubai's new 800-room Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences, to open in 2018, will look nothing like its palatial sister property, Atlantis, The Palm, next door. Instead, the US$1.4 billion project will be a high-tech design featuring a series of glass boxes, stacked Lego-style, and blending into the city's already futuristic skyline. Guest rooms will have private infinity pools and gardens, and hotel amenities will include luxury boutiques, gaming and celebrity-chef restaurants. "This Dubai property is going to be very different," affirms Ravini Perera, senior vice president sales, marketing and public relations, for Atlantis, The Palm.

Food will continue to be a focus, as the hospitality industry increasingly turns to locally sourced farm-to-table products as part of a commitment to sustainability and to entice guests to dine on-site. This past June, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts rolled out Sheraton 2020, a 10-point, five-year plan to put the brand firmly back in the global spotlight. The effort includes "Paired," a new F&B concept featuring artisanal small plates, eclectic bar snacks, premiums wines and microbrew beers. "We're introducing fun and exciting food pairings, which will offer our guests enriching and memorable culinary moments in our hotels," says Dave Marr, global brand leader for Sheraton.


Emerging markets 
While China has been a prime focus of every major hotel chain for the past five years, today Africa, the Middle East and several Asian countries are hot on its heels. According to the 2014 Deloitte Consumer Review, Africa: A 21st Century View, the African economy is expected to grow by 7.7 percent every year through 2019, about double the rate of advanced economies. And, like China, it has a growing middle class keen to consume luxury brands and travel.

Marriott International, which became the largest hotel operator in Africa after its 2014 acquisition of Protea Hotels, South Africa's leading lodging  group, plans to expand its portfolio from 10 African countries to 18 across seven brands. "With more than 850 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, there are enormous opportunities there," notes Alex Kyriakidis, president and managing director of the Middle East and Africa for Marriott International.

Likewise, Starwood Hotels & Resorts expects to grow its African portfolio, now at 34, by 50 percent in the next five years across nine of its 10 brands. "The momentum of growth we are seeing in Africa today is unprecedented," said Michael Wale, president for Starwood, Europe, Africa and Middle East, in a statement. "The demand for quality lodging will continue to grow and provide us with a significant opportunity to grow our brands and play our part in supporting emerging markets."

Even Airnb has taken note. This past July at the Global Entrepreneurial Summit 2015 held in Nairobi, Kenya, Brian Chesky, CEO of the San Francisco-based company, said the service had already seen an increase of 145 percent in Africa in the past year, and that it planned to capture an even bigger share of the 60 million visitors to the country each year, particularly in key markets such as Kenya and South Africa.

The Middle East is another region to watch. It was recently rated by the International Congress and Convention Association as the world's fastest growing market for international association meetings. Factors such as improved convention facilities, increased airlift, a robust hotel pipeline and, in some cases, reduced visa requirements make the growth potential for the region's MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) sector exceptional. "The Middle East will enjoy even greater international meeting activity in the future based on these underlying fundamentals," said Martin Sirk, ICCA's CEO, in a statement announcing ICCA's findings.

In 2016, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will begin a strategic marketing campaign aimed at attracting MICE business. Like the European Union model, the 10 member states that make up ASEAN -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- have broken down trade barriers that will free up the flow of people and goods, and hospitality is one market segment  likely to benefit.


Retooling for new generations 
French historian Alexis de Tocqueville famously said, "Among democratic nations, each generation is a new people." The term generation today, argues futurist, author and speaker Tom Koulopoulos, founder of Andover, Mass.-based Delphi Group, is defined more by the technology its members use than their age. That translates into different learning styles, which will pose a challenge for educators. "We might as well define generational boundaries according to Samsung's product-release schedule," Koulopoulos argues in his new book, The Gen Z Effect: The Six Forces Shaping the Future of Business.

For planners, the goal will be to deliver education in a setting that appeals to multiple generations. Traditional meeting rooms might work for some attendees, but others might prefer distance learning or informal settings.

This past October, Laura d'Elsa, regional director USA and Canada for the German Convention Bureau, presented a study on the IMEX trade-show floor titled "What's Ahead? Innovation @ Future Meeting Space," the fruits of a project between the German Convention Bureau, the European Association of Event Centers and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering.

"One thing we looked at was the use of nontraditional venues as meeting space," says d'Elsa. "In Hamburg there are a lot of beautiful old theaters that are used by day as meeting space, and then attendees stay on when they transition into night-time entertainment."

The study also found that Millennials, in particular, want to be involved in the education they access, rather than just follow an itinerary. In this regard, a trend known as Bar Camp (barcamp.org) is building steam, says d'Elsa. These face-to-face meetings have a theme, but attendees decide on the content by voting on ideas collected at the event's start. "I don't expect that this concept will work for a huge convention, but it is something we are seeing with smaller groups," says d'Elsa. "If attendees are pushing the content they want to see, they will be more engaged."