Revisiting the 2024 World Education Congress

The World Education Congress is MPI’s largest, annual event that gathers thousands of hospitality professionals from around the world. I was so incredible proud to represent our PHL Chapter, at the 2024 WEC in Louisville, Kentucky, with support from a partial scholarship from @VisitPhoenix, the MPI Foundation, and our Chapter.

This year’s WEC offered attendees over 13 CEUs across the three days of the conference, with the theme of “Craft Your Experience.”  It was an amazing line up of education from artificial intelligence to designing for diversity to working with different generations. With so many amazing education opportunities, the theme did resonate for attendees since there were so many ways one could create their own educational plan.

The tricky part for me was deciding which session to attend since so many good ones were concurrent.  What was a little bit trickier was getting to the meeting room early to make sure I grabbed a seat before the room filled out.

A sat in a pre-opening session: “OK, Zoomer!" The Battle Between Baby Boomers and Gen Z, featuring Taylor Smith (the GenZ-er) and Michael Owen (the Boomer) which dove straight into the differences and parallels of generational values and lifestyles.  Surprisingly, there were more similarities that were noted than I imagined.  As an Ancient Millennial myself, it was insightful to learn about strategies to work between different generations.

The main opening session space took up half of the convention floor, with rounds of 10 set up for 3,500 people. This I thought helped facilitate networking, plus gave me a little space to quick check on my work back home. The massive basketball-court size screens made it easy to see the stage and allowed for some cool visual effects.

Kicking off the Congress was keynote Pamela Schuller, an author, comedienne, and advocate for neuro-diversity inclusion. “F__ Your Fears” brought the audience through her journey living with Tourette Syndrome, but embracing parts of ourselves that are ‘messy’ but ultimately have shaped each of us.

There was a little break between the education and the opening dinner, so I popped back to my hotel to reset and drop my bag. MPI provided a series of buses to take all attendees to the iconic Churchill Downs where they opened the newly constructed First Turn Club. This open and continuous space had ample room for dinner buffets and delicious mint juleps. A couple of the trainers even brought out some horses to meet! The City-Gal inside me was very excited, since I didn’t grow up with a lot of large animals.

Tuesday was an early start with “MPI Chapter Leaders: Succession Shuffle - Mapping the Future” with Kate Copeland and Mark Bice (who was a previous Retreat Facilitator for PHL Chapter). As a Board Member, I am always looking for extra education that will help me service the membership.  This session was a great opportunity to get ideas on succession planning to help ensure that we can carry our success into the next fiscal year.

The main general session “Hacking the Rockstar Brain” was an energy jolt! With celebrity drummer Mark Schulman and NeuroPerformance Coach Heather Crider, the audience was taken through a journey of mental exercises and learned how to dive inward to harness one’s own creativity for high performance delivery.

Between the general sessions and other breakouts, I had the chance to explore the sponsor Marketplace with dozens of CVBs and hospitality partners. I was especially excited when I found the @PHLCVB #VisitPhilly booth with familiar faces as I connected with several Chapter Members. They were there to represent Philadelphia and area hotel properties (and I was especially thankful when they let me charge up my laptop during the break… thank you!).

The closing luncheon on Wednesday was hosted by Explore St. Louis, who will be the host city for 2025 World Education Congress from June 17-19, 2025. Their plated menu even featured Gooey Butter Cake, which I learned is a St. Louis staple and is dah-licious!  Registration is already open if you want to secure your spot today. 

I want to thank the Philadelphia Area Chapter again for the support and opportunity I had to travel to WEC Louisville. I truly feel that every planner should attend WEC where you can have the attendee experience to transform ideas into their own meetings and events.

My deepest gratitude,

Kristine