Government Meeting Cancellations Surge Amid Federal Layoffs

Brett Sterenson, president of Hotel Lobbyists, a site-selection company that works mainly with government events, has had 46 meeting cancellations, representing $1.9 million in lost hotel revenue. Last year, Hotel Lobbyists booked 467 global meetings worth $10 million.

“March 10 was the worst day for cancellations since the pandemic and the second worst day in business I’ve had in 18 years,” Sterenson said. “I expect these numbers to double by midyear.”

Federal government layoffs spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are leading to cancellations. Approximately 62,242 federal workers have been dismissed this year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm. 

“There’s always been a risk for hotels to take on government business due to their inability to sign traditional cancellation and attrition clauses, and their lower rates, but the reward has more than made up for it with their incredible volume,” he said. 

When and if government business will return is a concern. “I will have to start from scratch with many government agencies to determine who will be tasked with meeting placement. Two decades of hard work down the drain,” said Sterenson.

Sterenson said cancellations are wide-ranging. They include meetings for the U.S. Departments of State, Education, Labor, Defense, and Health, as well as the IRS. 

The meetings included domestic as well as international attendees on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, cultural heritage, identity theft, cross-border relations, forensic science, AI, environmental cleanup, rare disease research, and racial justice.

So Much Uncertainty

“It feels like a mini-Covid,” said Carolynne Nowrouzi, founder of the Toplandi Group, a site selection and contract negotiation company. “There’s so much uncertainty.”

Government business accounts for around 30% of Toplandi’s client base. One 150-person event scheduled for March was called off, and sourcing efforts for meetings in 2025 and 2026 have also been put on hold.

“Government shutdowns, financial crises, every few years there’s a wrench thrown into government meetings, but they always seem to bounce back,” she said.

Other areas of her business are being impacted. “Registration numbers for my corporate and association meetings are down 20 to 30% this year over last,” Nowrouzi said. 

Now, she believes, is a critical time for the business events industry to work together. “Hotels need to be slightly more flexible than usual in the cases of lowered registration numbers and attrition,” she said. 

Event Tech Also Impacted by Cancellations

Pedro Góes, CEO of InEvent, an event tech company whose clients include NASA, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the SEC, and the FDIC, has seen 13-17% of its government business impacted. “We work two to three years in advance and expect to see even more cancellations at the end of this year, the beginning of next,” said Góes.

He is holding out some optimism. “Hopefully, this is meant just to shock, and some of these government employees will be rehired, and contracts will be awarded very quickly,” he said. “It will be messy, but it may be a possibility.”

Zeb Irshad Reyaz, CMO, Dryfta, an event tech company, has seen a dip in attendance. A recent Johns Hopkins University conference Dryfta worked with was anticipating 2,500 attendees. That number decreased to 1,000.

”Most attendees at these conferences come from government institutions. With recent layoffs, that number is going to go down drastically,” said Reyaz.

Some of Dryfta’s smaller conferences have been cancelled. “Especially those reliant on federal funding or dependent on participants traveling from regions affected by policy changes,” he said.