Meetings make the world go around, and today we’re celebrating everything about them – Happy Global Meetings Industry Day!
This is the second year the advocacy coalition Meetings Mean Business has globally highlighted the influence that business meetings have on local communities. Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID) on April 12th celebrates the impact meetings have on the lives of modern civilization and everyone is invited!
We rarely take the time to appreciate the significance of meetings. Regardless of your role, we are all at the mercy of meetings to keep us organized, focused, and communicating in effective ways. However, we may be looking at this all wrong. The purpose behind GMID is to focus on how meetings bring people in communities together to share a common cause, accomplish local goals, and get to know one another. It is the modern-day version of “power to the people” if you will. By bonding members of the meetings industry with local business leaders in a wide variety of platforms, GMID promotes awareness of the accomplishments we can achieve through hosting meetings, conventions, conferences, trade shows and other business events.
In 2017, its inaugural year, Global Meetings Industry Day was celebrated by meetings and events industry professionals in over 115 events in 30 countries. This year will top that by a wide margin. Check here to see what events are scheduled around the world and in your area.
Let’s take a look at how meetings are impacting the world:
• Every dollar spent on face-to-face meetings and business events generates an additional $1.60 for the U.S. economy
• In 2016, 1.9 million meetings were held in the United States, generating $845 billion in economic impact.
• Meetings generated $325 billion of direct spending, including:
$167 billion to plan and produce meetings;
$120 billion for meetings travel; and,
$38 billion of other direct spending, such as spending by exhibitors.
• Meetings direct spending is growing, expanding 23% since 2009, primarily due to an expanding number of meeting participants.
• On average, $1,294 is spent per meeting participant.
• Six million international meeting participants generate $38 billion of meetings direct spending (11.5% of the sector total).
• Meetings in 2016 generated 300 million room nights.
• The meetings sector supported 2.5 million jobs, with $95.6 billion of direct wages and salaries. The sector directly generated $184.2 billion of GDP.
While the list of benefits and contributions goes on and on, the general idea for Global Meetings Industry Day is to celebrate the people and companies that continue moving this industry forward. Innovative Entertainment is proud to both support and contribute to the meetings industry. Join us today by showing some love to an industry that makes the world go around!
