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At this week's PCMA Convening Leaders conference at David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, leaders of the Meetings Mean Business coalition—which showcases the tangible value that face-to-face meetings, conventions, and trade shows provide to people, businesses, and host communities—revealed what coalition co-chair Julie Coker Graham called the group's "activation strategy" for 2019. "Our goal is to try to mitigate the threat to the events business" from potential economic slowdown as well as travel restrictions that can reduce international business travel, said Coker Graham, who is also president and CEO of the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Looking back at the last decade, there were four huge tipping points for the international meetings industry. Now, on the other side of these changes they’ve become normalized, but when the industry was living through them, they caused a lot of fear and uncertainty. With hindsight, it’s easy to see how these periods of intense disruption have ultimately led to positive transformation for many parts of the meetings and events industry.

What industry creates more jobs in the United States than auto manufacturing, chemical manufacturing (including pharmaceuticals), and oil and gas? As an event professional, you know intuitively that it is the event industry. A new study by Tourism Economics (a division of Oxford Economics) for the Events Industry Council and Meetings Mean Business Coalitionshowed that bringing people together for face-to-face meetings has massive impacts on everything from direct spending at venues to indirect spending through the supply chain and spending by people working in the industry.

A new report issued by the GBTA Foundation and American Express GBT, highlights the positive economic impact business travel has on the nation’s economy.