Dallas, TX, August 4, 2021: Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the world’s largest meeting and event industry association, published its Summer 2021 Meetings Outlook, a future-focused quarterly report that identifies new trends and innovations. The publication allows planners to budget and plan accordingly and ensures a strong foundation for building sound strategies that keep businesses on paths to success.

Optimism and business expectations are the highest ever seen in Meetings Outlook, while eager and innovative meeting professionals envision major growth for the year to come for hiring, budgets, attendance and more even as coronavirus variants threaten to sidetrack recovery.

Key findings from the report include:

• An astounding 93% of respondents are projecting favorable business conditions over the next year, making this the second consecutive quarter with record-breaking positive expectations. Compare that to last summer when only 36% of respondents were anticipating positive business conditions for the year to come.

• 84% of respondents have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus—roughly double that of U.S. and Canadian averages.

• The percentage of respondents anticipating favorable live attendance over the next 12 months (77%) is at an all-time high. For comparison, last summer, only 11% of respondents predicted favorable attendance to come.

• Presented with 10 social and economic attributes that may or may not affect destination selection, the two that respondents most often said make them more likely to choose a location related to embracing diversity, equity and inclusion, and robust public transit. On the flipside, the two attributes that most make respondents less likely to select a destination include strong unions and less restrictive gun laws.

“There was historic optimism among industry leaders about the industry’s future growth in Quarter 2, with a never-before-seen 93% of meeting professionals predicting favorable business conditions over the next 12 months and hiring numbers that have grown to match pre-pandemic rates,” said Jessie States, CMP, CMM, Director, MPI Academy for Meeting Professionals International. “This data may not reflect current realities as the Delta and other coronavirus variants spread globally and regions react in real-time to local conditions.

That instability may impact decision-making and long-term planning for the return of some events. It’s important not to take August’s numbers in isolation, rather to consider them as a reflection of a moment in time. November’s Meetings Outlook will show whether the optimism and growth are sustained trends.”

Meetings Outlook presents future industry trends and predictions from MPI members, including meeting professionals on MPI’s Business Research Panel. Research is conducted in-house using the Qualtrics survey platform. The research is conducted quarterly and provides current business conditions and future outlooks.

Meetings Outlook is developed in partnership with IMEX Group. The full report can be found: https://www.mpi.org/docs/default-source/meetings-outlook/meetings-outlook-summer-2021.pdf

Media Contact:  Peggy Foley, communications@mpi.org; 972-365-7984