I spent this week in Dijon at the 40th City Destinations Alliance Summer School, surrounded by people working across convention bureaus, associations, PCOs, corporate meetings, sustainability, technology and destination development. The programme covered a lot of ground, from bidding and client expectations to inclusion, legacy, AI and the changing role of convention bureaux. Across these discussions, a fairly coherent picture of the business-events industry emerged. Convention bureaus are moving beyond selling destination product. Increasingly, our role is to understand what an organisation wants to achieve, determine whether our destination has something relevant to contribute, bring the right people together locally and demonstrate afterwards what the meeting actually achieved. The right meeting can be more valuable than the biggest meeting For years, much of the business-events discussion has been dominated by delegate numbers, hotel nights and economic impact. Those indicators...

The CEO Summit in Newport Beach brought together a consistent message across discussions. The role of destination leadership is expanding as the environment around it becomes more complex and less predictable. This combination is reshaping what the job actually is. The global context: growth with increasing complexity Travel and tourism continue to grow and remain one of the largest economic sectors globally. The scale is significant, both in terms of GDP contribution and employment. Growth, however, is no longer a simple indicator of success. The conditions behind that growth are changing. Geopolitical tensions, rising costs, and shifting travel patterns are all influencing how and where people travel. Long-haul travel is becoming more expensive. Regional dynamics are shifting, with Asia Pacific and the Middle East gaining momentum, while some traditional markets are facing slower recovery in international demand. Domestic travel remains a stabilising force. In many countries it repre...