In-Depth Insights from the 2024 Special IMEX Industry Trends Report from Maritz

MADDY RYLEY, MANAGING EDITOR

October 15, 2024

CHICAGO — Maritz released its 2024 Special IMEX Industry Trends Report last week at IMEX America, the annual trade show for the events industry. Within the report, Maritz lays out the current pulse it is seeing from its clients, along with an inflation forecast and a guide to maximizing each phase of the incentive journey.

Trade Show Executive sat down with Steve O’Malley, Chief Operating Officer at Maritz, after IMEX to discuss the report’s findings in detail and learn more about what’s next for the industry.

“IMEX was fantastic,” said O’Malley about the launching ground for the 2024 report. “I think this year outperformed IMEX America’s biggest numbers, and it was a great statement about the health of our industry. There was great buzz, great activity and it felt like a family reunion again.”

Client Trends

According to the report, Maritz is seeing different trends emerging between its corporation clients and association/trade show clients.

Trade Shows and Associations

Where corporate clients are on condensed planning cycles, the trade show and association clients are contracting further out and returning to pre-COVID windows.

“For the past couple years, we’ve been waiting for them [clients] to get back to booking many years out, and it just hasn’t been there. I think people were reticent to make commitments, because the market itself was so volatile,” O’Malley said. “Over the last two years, associations and trade shows have seen that their blocks are way over performing, and they don’t want to be caught without the opportunity to maximize that as they go into the future. So, I’m excited to see that behavior is coming back, and that just helps everybody; it helps our hotel partners, it helps us plan for that as opposed to scrambling, and I think it just shows the health of the industry.”

Some other trends for trade show and association clients are trying to attract a younger audience, evaluating sponsorship strategies and fee structures to grow revenue from attendees, exhibitors and sponsors, and the acceleration of event technology, with innovation and data insights as a critical focus.

“What we have found since the recovery period began, is that we are seeing traditionally fewer exhibitors on the show floor, but those exhibitors are activating at a much deeper rate than they were prior to the pandemic,” O’Malley said. “It’s really a matter of constant follow up for those exhibitors that are committed to your organization or your event. Make sure you’re giving them every opportunity to buy fully into all the assets that are available — be it lead retrieval and sponsorship opportunities.”

O’Malley suggests that organizers keep exhibitors as up to date as possible on the registration list, especially as research is showing people are registering closer to an event date than before, to ensure they are able to do outreach to make appointments ahead of an event, thus helping to maximize the event’s value and exhibitor’s ROI.

Corporate Clients

For corporate clients, there is a strong demand to meet face-to-face, but budgets haven’t been keeping up with inflation, and there is more procurement and legal scrutiny to reduce risk and leverage spend. Corporate clients are also under mandates to measure and reduce their carbon footprint.

“There’s a distinct difference between what’s going on in North America and what’s going on in Europe [when it comes to sustainability],” O’Malley said. “I think some corporations are very far down the road, some of the companies we work with are far down the road as well, but everybody’s going to have to get there. I think that kind of regulation is going to come for the entire industry. We need to get ahead of it as an industry to make sure we are reflecting the benefits of coming to a trade show or coming to a corporate event, and not getting vilified for the carbon footprint that we generate.

“It’s not just about when is it going to happen, it’s really starting now, start measuring and figuring these things out because otherwise the pace of play is going to be dictated by someone else. The supplier network is coming together to provide more detail around the carbon footprint that an event makes and making it more accessible for companies like us to help our clients understand.”

Inflation and Destinations

According to Maritz, the costs are forecasted to increase 4.3% in 2025 for meetings and events, due to inflationary pressures in the industry, and the recovery of business travel and in-person events. This inflation is also kept in check by general inflation cooling, post-COVID travel decreasing and the reduction in hiring.

When looking at items most relevant to the events industry in 2025, Maritz forecasts hotel costs to be up 2% to 4%, F&B costs to be up 3% to 6%, wages for event staff to rise 3% to 4%, and air fares to increase 1%.

“There’s always the unforeseen,” O’Malley said. “It doesn’t help that we have two wars going on in the world, one being in the Middle East which could add volatility to oil prices, and with that your freight goes up, airfare goes up, etc. Then we never know if there’s going to be some sort of avian flu where the price of eggs and chicken go through the roof. It’s those kinds of things that we must keep an eye on. [Overall] things have moderated, hotel pricing and wages in the hospitality industry aren’t going up that dramatically, so I think it’s the extraneous variables we need to keep an eye on, like fuel costs and food costs.”

In response to these increasing costs, organizers are considering more midsize cities as ideal destinations to take their events to keep costs in check. It is reported that the average hotel group rates are as follows: Top Five Large Cities at $285, Large Cities at $232, and Midsized Cities at $217.

Maximizing the Incentive Journey

In the report, there are also some actionable insights about incentive journeys, and what kinds of rewards work best depending on the values of the people receiving them and the incentive program itself.

When announcing incentives, it is important to showcase your organizing principle and to be more personal than just a generic email. An organizing principle is the word or short phrase that really sums up what the goal and motivation is behind the program.

And then, as you look to attract and create anticipation, the report says it is important to use intentional language and reinforce the organizing principle through the qualification process in order to sustain the excitement.

“It can’t just be about having the top sales, you also have to align with the culture,” O’Malley said. “You have to make sure that this person who is achieving these things is really a good representative of your brand. By putting the right rule structure in place, you can work through that so it’s not just about production: It’s about customer satisfaction, it’s about employee satisfaction or peer reviews. One of the ways we suggest doing it for our customers, and we do it for ourselves too, is peer nomination for a recognition program.”

When it comes to the “Achieving” and “Reward Experience” part of the journey, it’s good to understand the differences between rewards and how they can impact the business. When thinking about incentive rewards, you can evaluate them by their appeal, business impact, emotional impact, duration and motivational influence.

For example, monetary awards are highly appealing and great at driving immediate action, but they are not so compelling for long-term emotional connection. On the flipside, experiential awards have high emotional impact and a long duration of the impact, helping to drive business results over time.

“Especially in our business, employees travel all the time, they participate in industry events. Why not expose them to the effective use of incentive travel, so that they can actually go and enjoy themselves and enjoy the experience?” O’Malley says. “Our people work in this business all the time, but then they don’t get to necessarily always be treated like a guest when they go somewhere, but in this case, they actually are.”

Fast Facts: Making Events Neuroinclusive

The Trends Report also contains four tips from Marriott’s Glenn Stress, Vice President, Global B2B Marketing and Events, to make events more neuroinclusive.