How businesses & people are energising & growing again
This guide for 2022 & 2023 meetings & incentives (5 min read) is for: business leaders organising meetings & incentives, or people improving culture, communications, team-bonding, wellness, reward, recognition, retention & motivation. Everyone in the world is seeking happiness & new experiences. Every business is seeking fresh energy and new growth. People and businesses are re-thinking everything. Businesses are re-energising, planning and investing in their most important people – and yes, they’re using meetings & incentives (M&I). Destinations our customers are asking for include Buenos Aires, Paris, Dubrovnik, Mykonos, Riviera Maya, Stockholm, Lisbon, New York, Barcelona, Istanbul & Singapore. Customers are improving culture, communications, team-bonding, wellness, reward, recognition, retention & motivation. The pandemic has affected all of these subjects, and our customers are improving them. To help you improve these same subjects in 2022 & 2023, our guide below, is updated monthly.
Your 2022 guide is here: written by Ben & Dave at Make Happen, for business leaders organising meetings & incentives, or people improving culture, communications, team-bonding, wellness, reward, recognition, retention & motivation. Your guide covers (1) Economic growth, (2) Business change, (3) Business problems, (4) Business Travel (5) Leisure Travel, (6) Availability, (7) Destinations, (8) Incentives, (9) Meetings, (10) M&I networking shows. During 2022 & 2023, this guide will be updated to align with important news, trends, and all the developments you need to manage. Keeping you ahead of the game.
Economic growth: In Jan 2022, the IMF reported global growth at 5.9% for 2021, 4.4% for 2022, and 3.8% for 2023. Naturally, some businesses will grow, some will not change, and some will change a lot. In our experience, the businesses who are always improving and readying themselves, are the businesses who prioritise their people. Ask any CEO, Sales/Marketing Director or People Director – and the good ones will tell you – they focus on culture, communications, team-bonding, wellness, reward, recognition, retention & motivation. How will this affect you, your team, and your business? Is your M&I programme designed to adapt & overcome global growth forecasts, or just drift along?
Business change: On Jan 13th 2022, Harvard Business Review listed 11 key business trends/changes to watch for 2022 onwards (fairness, safety, work-time, employee-turnover, relationships, technology, hybrid-working, wellness, ESG Purpose, health, DE&I). This explains why our customers are talking to us about culture, comms, wellness, energy, motivation, recognition, special memories & wow experiences. Social, political & environmental subjects are increasingly important to our customers planning. Are these subjects featuring in your planning meetings? What is your business doing to make positive changes for 2022 onwards?
Business problems: On Jan 22nd 2022, Forbes identified the biggest problems facing CEOs during 2022 & 2023. External problems included rising inflation, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and changing consumer behaviours. Internal problems included talent attraction, employee retention, leadership teams, people development & modifying business models. ESG Strategic thinking is highlighting the importance of environmental and social issues, equity, inclusion, employee well-being, workforce management and community impact. The new trend of “stakeholder capitalism” is spotlighting the CEO focus on customers first, employees second and shareholders third. At Make Happen, we’re working closely with our customers to ensure their M&I programmes address these subjects.
Business Travel : is back, in a big way, and many of our customers re-started their meetings & incentives from November 2021 (in US, LATAM, Europe & Dubai). Read for yourself .. 07/02/22 Portugal & Greece relax their entry rules (read here). 09/02/22 over 60% of US and EU companies have commenced business travel, and are returning to offices in Q1 2022 (more here). From 11/02/22, for the UK, all vaccinated travellers in or out of UK do not require any tests (more here). 21/02/22 Australia re-opens to business travellers after 2 years (read here).
Trends to watch .. real-life experiences, face to face, social experiences, business energy & culture, comms & motivation plans, people re-connecting, team-bonding, leadership meetings, reward experiences, sales incentives, marketing meetings, internal comms meetings, eco-friendly, bleisure, alternative accommodation, self-booking, flexible policies, tech tools, new travel markets, and detailed planning.
Leisure Travel: is happily exploding around the world. On Jan 17th 2022, Conde Nast Traveller listed 10 very interesting travel trends for 2022 onwards (Restriction-free destinations, Long-haul reboot, Personal development retreats, Extreme expeditions, All-inclusive luxury, Cosmonaut training camps, Hallucinogenic healing, Barefoot workations, Adventure hiking & Streamer locations). If you’re a business leader planning your meetings & incentives during 2022 to 2024, we advise you to think about “availability issues due to leisure travel”. Our wisest customers are booking now, with flexible terms, to avoid problems with culture, communications, team-bonding, wellness, reward, recognition, retention & motivation.
Availability: is quickly reducing globally, especially in US, LATAM & Europe. As you will have heard from your colleagues, travel managers & hotels .. the global business community is re-booking 2020 & 2021 .. into .. 2022 & 2023. In simple terms, this results in about 4 years worth of business plans, being squeezed into 2 years of destination/hotel availability. Add to this the push from global businesses to re-connect & re-energise, and you have a ‘perfect storm’ scenario of low availability. For this reason, we are not ignoring ‘availability’ with customers. Far from it, we are shouting about it – so the real business leaders can stay ahead.
Destinations: From Q1 2022, travel rules & restrictions are relaxing globally. Business travellers are rapidly returning to popular global destinations. Popular LATAM destinations include Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Mexico City, Riviera Maya, Sao Paulo, Costa Rica & Bogota. Popular US destinations include Miami, LA, Vegas, New York, Dallas, Atlanta & Chicago). Popular European destinations include Dublin, London, Lisbon, Barcelona, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich, Oslo, Copenhagen, Berlin, Vienna, Dubrovnik, Mykonos, Istanbul & Tel Aviv.
M&I networking shows:
IMEX Vegas in November was a huge success for Make Happen and our industry as a whole and a major step in the right direction to proving what can be done despite all the restrictions in place. We met with some amazing new businesses which we are excited to be working alongside for there 2022/23 M&I. Later this year we are looking forward to catching up with our industry friends and meeting new exciting businesses in Frankfurt. InVoyage in Cape Town, Which M&I shows will you be attending this year?
For further help, advice, or just a friendly chat email dave@makehappen.co.uk