Peter Heath, founder, Venue Performance, looks at the return of business travel in 2025 and what that might mean for meetings and events
“Looking to the autumn, September and October picked up a little bit in terms of demand, building on what had been a healthy first half to the year which had then dropped off and started to flatten over the summer.
“November is going to be a key month for the quarter and will be a lot of people's end of year, now that December isn't what it once was in terms of Christmas parties. Last year November performed really well in terms of actual events taking place.
“We are still seeing a lag, with meetings, conferences, events that have been booked a long time ago that are taking place in the second half of the year, for example. The other metric is the booking ratio, how many people are booking for the future? How many people are committing? That shows intent and your demand and what we have seen is that it had flatlined, but is now picking up.
“The forecasts for 2025 all suggest that we are going to seeing an increase in business travel, which would suggest that we will also see more demand across meetings and events; from small gatherings to conferences. Travellers can of course meet anywhere these days, but if there are more of them whizzing around, then the chances are there'll be more of them settling somewhere in a hotel meeting room, which is more convenient.
“Looking at the international market, the Chinese have not yet come back. Americans allegedly stay away during an election year, although the STR data says they don't. So will Americans start traveling? If, as expected, their economy picks up, Americans will start traveling, maybe the Chinese will start traveling again, but irrespective of those two, there's a general upward trend.
“If you look at UK, PLC, we've been in a holding pattern. We came out of a bad financial period into a general election, into a Budget, and now into Christmas. So I think in 2025 we’ll see businesses thinking: “It is what is, let’s just get on with it”. And that can only be good news for everyone in M&E.”
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