This month, we’re chatting with several MPI chapter presidents about important trends they have their eye on and why they’re optimistic about the meeting and event industry in 2023. Today, we hear from Giuseppina Cardinale from the Italia Chapter and Lauren Siring from the Sacramento-Sierra Nevada Chapter.
All these interviews and much more can be found in “Trends of 2023,” an eBook created by MPI and Meetings today. Download your free copy now.
Giuseppina Cardinale
Sales & Marketing Department Manager, FH55 Hotels
President, MPI Italia Chapter
Tell us about a meeting and event trend you’ll be closely watching in 2023.
Hybrid events will be one of the big event trends in 2023. Event attendees desire to meet in person but travel costs and inflation will play a big role. Event planners and designers, especially of new generations, have seen that hybrid events can boost event sustainability and accessibility. Sustainability and corporate social responsibility are the foremost demands that are influencing the management of events. Planners have become more aware of the impacts that hosting meetings and events can have on the environment and sustainability is becoming a key driver of most activity aiming at minimizing the negative impacts by adopting sustainable practices across social, economic and environmental issues.
What are you most optimistic about as a new year in meetings and events gets under way?
Things are now getting back on track, and we have already seen a gradual return to in-person meetings. Even if forecasting has become quite challenging after these turbulent years of the pandemic, the outlook for the future of the meetings and events industry looks quite optimistic and there is an overall sentiment that 2023 can provide a great opportunity to recover part of our lost revenue and improve profits.
What have you learned over the past three years that has made you a better meeting professional?
I have learned how important it is being part of a big community like MPI, having the chance to exchange thoughts and experiences with peers from all over the world, supporting our members with inspirational webinars, making new projects within our chapter and joining forces with other Italian professional associations to present demands and petitions to our government in order to support our industry. Keeping positive thinking in order to catch new opportunities even in a dark time like the pandemic. I’ve learned to use new technologies and applications to connect and organize meetings, new forms of engagement for participants and much more attention and sensitivity to inclusion and sustainability in its three dimensions: economic, social and environmental.
Lauren Siring, CMP, CGMP
Senior Business Development Executive, Monterey County (Calif.) CVB
President, MPI Sacramento-Sierra Nevada Chapter
Tell us about a meeting and event trend you’ll be closely watching in 2023.
Monterey County is sustainable in nature. Because of our commitment to this, the Monterey County CVB, and many of our partners, have been a leader in sustainability with consistent messaging regarding green meetings and travel. Our organization’s dedication to best practices in these efforts are supported with our CEO as the current chair for CalTravel’s Sustainability & Stewardship Committee. From the top down, our organization will be keeping a pulse on sustainable travel and events.
What are you most optimistic about as a new year in meetings and events gets under way?
With my MPI Sacramento-Sierra Nevada Chapter (MPISSN) hat on, I would say I am most optimistic about getting our members together for in-person events and growing our numbers for attendance. Because our chapter is a smaller one with longtime members, it feels like a reunion getting everyone back together. We have some great programming lined up for the remainder of the year and I can’t wait to see our network of MPISSN mixing and mingling, and back to our special events, like the popular Crab Feed.
What have you learned over the past three years that has made you a better meeting professional?
I’ve always been proud of being a trusted resource in my field. People come to me for help and guidance, but I found myself in uncharted waters when the pandemic hit and I didn’t have all the answers. I realized that nobody had the answers and my ways of being a collaborator, joining forces and keeping informed were ways to get through the unprecedented circumstances. In my role with MPISSN, I was anxious of becoming the chapter president because I had thoughts that the person in that position was someone that would be all-knowing and felt I may not be wise enough to lead our group. But in the past few years I’ve learned how some of the best leaders allow for themselves, and others, to be vulnerable.
