While the majority of meeting and event professionals surveyed for MPI’s Q2 Meetings Outlook had a not-so-rosy outlook, the organization stressed that since the survey was conducted between March 31-April 11—smack in the middle of “tariff-gate”—responses needed to be reviewed in that light.
So having said that, only 31 percent of respondents expect favorable conditions over the next year—the least-positive ever seen in Meetings Outlook. Compare this to Q1 2025, when 71 percent saw favorable business conditions, 18 percent were neutral and just 10 percent were negative.
As one planner said in the report: “We are seeing a 40 percent decline…attendence will continue to drop for our events in the U.S.”
In fact, nearly half of survey respondents (48 percent) expect in-person event attendance to decrease over the coming year—the greatest expectation for a decline in live attendance seen in the survey since Q1 2021, the middle of the pandemic.
Cutbacks Cutting Into Business
It isn’t the only the tariffs planners are worried about—government cutbacks are reducing or even halting certain association and international events. Some planners have lost contracted business due to the DOGE cutbacks and expect to see a deline in RFPs from organizations that have lost their funding.
One U.S.-based association planner said, “[many of] our members and attendees are federally funded… and are theoretically funded until the end of the government’s fiscal year, but we are anticipating severe cuts for fiscal year 2026… as we anticipate the [administration] viewing the funding of our members as ‘waste.'”
Another planner said their “clients have lost funding due to DEI initiatives being cut as well as government employees being let go and those in place not able to travel for conferences.”
Indeed, the impacts of recent U.S. executive orders and/government policy changes are being called severe or moderately severe by 75 percent of respondents, with one planner saying “I think many international groups will shift their meetings outside the U.S.”
You May Also Be Interested In…
MPI WEC St. Louis ‘Rallies’ the Future of Meetings
Global Conflicts Disrupting Int’l Meetings, IAPCO Says
ECA Calls Tariffs a “Significant Concern”
