Top Trends for Meetings: Attendees Want Warm Weather, More Leisure 

Jan Freitag, national director, hospitality analytics at CoStar Group, joined Cvent’s Kell Kopec, senior manager, product marketing, and Alex Platia, director of product marketing, during a recent webinar focused on top trends for meetings.

Hotels still remain in the driver’s seat when it comes to negotiations, said Freitag. “The upper end of the hotel market is doing quite well, with healthy RevPAR expected this year for upper upscale and upscale properties – those that offer large meeting spaces,” he said. 

Five hotel markets have seen both increased group business since 2023 and matched 2019 performance: Dallas, Orlando, Las Vegas, Nashville and Tampa.

“These are the ‘Smile States,’ with Las Vegas as an outlier because of the Super Bowl,” Freitag explained. “Meeting planners want to go to these markets because they can be partially outside and they have a lot of entertainment options outside of the hotel.”

Along with destination choices, attendee preferences are driving meeting patterns, said Cvent’s Kopec. “For shorter in-person events, planners are choosing Wednesday to start,” said Kopec. “The bleisure trend is still in full effect.

“In-person events tend to start after or lead up to a weekend, and attendees are staying before or after. People want to experience the destination and enjoy leisure time, so it makes sense that event organizers are designing their programs with attendee preferences in mind.”

Drilling Down Through Cvent Data

Kopec and Platia drilled down into data from the Cvent platform to identify a few other top trends affecting their meeting customers: 

1. RFPs are Up, ADR is Steady

For the second quarter of 2024, in-person events have continued to grow. RFP volume was up 12% and room nights were up 21%, while rate growth was up only .5%. “The average daily rate has remained stable over the last year, which is good for planners,” said Platia. 

2. Planners are Shopping Around

Cvent has found that 74% of the RFPs in its system are sent to one metro area, 26% are sent to two or more metro areas, and 16% are sent to three or more. 

3. International Meetings are Back

“So far this year, we’ve had more than 115 countries sourced by planners in the U.S., which is up 3% year over year,” said Platia. “Over 900,000 room nights have been sourced internationally; that’s up 1% year over year.”

4. Flexibility Leads to Bookings

59% of the Cvent suppliers turn down RFPs due to unavailability of either guest rooms and meeting space, or date patterns. “If you don’t feel like you’re getting enough bids back as a planner, take advantage of submitting the RFP with alternate dates,” said Platia. “This past year, planners that were flexible accepted alternate date proposals 45% of the time.”

Companies are Still Not Back in the Office

Underlying many of the trends is the fact that companies still have not managed to move their employees back into the office.

“The office vacancy rate is expected to reach 25% for Class A buildings in the major markets,” Freitag said. “The Amazon announcement notwithstanding, people are in the office a lot less than they were pre-pandemic, and corporate tenants don’t need as much office space.

“I think this drives a tailwind for group demand, because if we are not in the office all the time, we still have to get together. There’s also a higher desire among teams to travel because I think we’re all Teamed out and Zoomed out.”