Four years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic upended the travel industry. While the leisure travel sector made a strong comeback, business travel has made a more cautious recovery, impacted not only by health concerns and regulations but also by permanently changed ways of working. Now, as live events pick up steam again, meetings and seminars will account for a larger proportion of business travel bookings, signaling a renewed emphasis on face-to-face interaction and networking.
Workers will attend meetings more frequently by 2024
Meetings and large events have been a key aspect of business travel for many years, given their size and the budget involved in planning and attending. In late 2022, Morning Consult data revealed that meetings and seminars were the most common business travel occasions, and this remains the case today. What are considered more discretionary occasions, such as incentive travel and corporate retreats, are lower in priority for business travelers. This has not changed since 2022. This indicates that the priorities of trip types remain fairly consistent, even in the post-pandemic era.
One notable change over time is how often employees plan to attend meetings. While the percentage of those saying they will attend one or two has fallen by six percentage points since the second half of 2022, the percentage of those planning to attend three or more has increased by nine percentage points overall. This is likely due to more major events moving to in-person over the past year, which is a positive sign for the meetings industry.
As such, American Express Global Business Travel predicts that nearly six in 10 meetings will be fully in-person in 2024, with the remainder roughly evenly split between hybrid and remote. These figures have sparked widespread optimism among industry insiders that attendance at live events will recover to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.
Meeting attendance growth is uneven across demographics
While the overall outlook for conferences and large events is bright, attendance growth is not uniform across demographics. When asked how their travel to conferences and events next year will compare to last year, there was a notable gender gap in responses, with women 8 percentage points more likely than men to say they plan to travel less. In general, women are less likely than men to say they plan to attend one conference next year, but they are 14 points less likely to say they plan to attend three or more. This may be another sign of the pandemic’s long-term impact on women in the workplace.
There are also clear differences between generations: Baby Boomers are the most likely to say they will travel to fewer meetings this year than last, suggesting that the frequency of business travel is slowing for this generation even as many delay retirement. At the other end of the age spectrum, Gen Z and Millennials are much more likely than older generations to say they expect to travel more to meetings and large events.
But it’s the higher-income demographic that has the most potential for growth: A quarter of households earning over $100,000 a year say they will attend more meetings or events than they did last year. This demographic is also the highest attendee demographic in general, with nearly four in 10 saying they will attend at least three meetings or seminars this year, compared to 27% of households earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year and 16% of those earning less than $50,000.
Sustainability concerns could be a headwind for the meetings sector
While the overall momentum for large conferences and meetings is positive, one factor that may impact the future growth of this sector is environmental concerns. As consumer preferences around sustainability change, the travel industry is under increasing pressure for its inherent contribution to climate change. Business travelers are also more likely than leisure travelers to say they are willing to make changes to their lifestyle to benefit the environment, with 78% saying they would do so in May 2024, up 8 percentage points from the start of 2021.
While this upward trend can certainly be attributed in part to climate-conscious Gen Zers making up a larger percentage of business travelers, brands shouldn’t dismiss it as a generational anomaly. Gen Zers may be more environmentally conscious than other generations, but as extreme weather events make headlines, all generations are starting to take notice.
When it comes to meetings, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations to adopt tools that enable virtual and hybrid formats. As environmental concerns grow, some organizations may leverage these tools to minimize the environmental impact of large events and re-embrace hybrid or fully remote formats.
