My event and travel industry conference itinerary this summer started strong with Destinations International’s Annual Convention, immediately after which I fortuitously escaped—by mere hours—one of the worst air travel disruptions on record, caused by the CrowdStrike IT failure, before a few days later continuing on to an incredibly impactful and memorable U.S. Travel Summer Summit in Napa, Calif.
While the Summer Summit kicked off with a sobering exploration by Maziar Minovi, CEO for the Eurasia Group, on the tenuous state of the global economy, as well as an in-depth analysis of the geopolitical recession we currently find ourselves in, the throughline that emerged during those three days of discussion with travel leaders from across the hospitality industry was the importance and the increasing demand of consumers for experiences. With few exceptions, no matter the industry, product or company, people are more eager than ever to equate value, and make buying decisions, based upon experiences.
Albertson’s CEO Vivek Sankaran explained how people today have myriad ways to purchase groceries without ever leaving home, so their stores have to provide consumers an experience worth leaving their homes for. Chip Bergh, former president and CEO, Levi Strauss. & Co., expanded on the company’s branding, which is based on how your life experience happens while you’re wearing Levi’s, and how that led to their famous tagline, you wear other jeans, but you “Live in Levi’s.”
Even in the travel sector, Margaret Smith, senior managing director and executive director, Accenture, expressed this shift to an unquenchable thirst for experiences and personalization—she shared that pre-pandemic, her travel team was essentially providing a transactional service to her business travel customers, informed by essential facts such as departure and arrival locations, suitable dates and times for travel and maybe airline preferences. Now, customers have much more detailed requirements that demand greater individualization, designed around each traveler’s personal preferences, needs and priorities, placing added pressure on booking agencies, airlines, hotels and all manner of travel and hospitality industry service providers.
And with the surge in music-based tourism, Jordan Zachary, co-president, U.S. concerts, Live Nation, said his company recognized that their role for their customers no longer begins and ends with ticketing—customers want a full experience, not just a concert. In part, Live Nation is serving this demand with its destination experience company Vibee, launched in 2023.
What these companies are learning (or starting to remember) is something that the MPI community has known—and never forgotten—for more than five decades: There’s incalculable value with in-person human-to-human interactions, and that the preferred destinations and most highly rated events provide unique and memorable experiences that incorporate and leverage local culture, venues and facilities.
Pandemic lockdowns undoubtedly opened the eyes of many to this as in-person experiences were briefly relegated to memories—a realization of what was or could be lost. But there’s certainly also a generational component to this change to an experience-based customer demand.
Live Nation’s Zachary noted this confluence of factors as well, explaining that, in most instances, off-peak days for concerts no longer really exist; every day of the week is fair game because people are so hungry for live experiences, and with the expansive adoption of remote work and flexible work hours, the perception or definition of a workday versus the weekend has become clouded or less predictable.
This same thing can be seen in the travel sector with the monumental rise in blending business and leisure travel. Yes, “bleisure,” yet another trend that meeting and event professionals have known about and practiced for decades, but that now occupies countless headlines as everyone strives for work-life balance, and to leverage their time on the road, is the new normal.
With this futurist-like DNA, meeting and event professionals are in a unique position to not only continue crafting experiences worth remembering (like MPI did at WEC Louisville), but to chart the changing seas of human needs and create the experiences of tomorrow.
We don’t say, “When we meet, we change the world” flippantly—we mean it. And it’s MPI’s role to provide you with the tools and resources to design the events that will change the world.
