Amex GBT发布2027年会议与活动预测：预算预期增长但面临成本审查与安全政策缺口

Skift Take

Meeting budgets are growing, but rising costs and geopolitical uncertainty are forcing planners to rethink how they spend. Amex GBT’s latest forecast reveals another vulnerability: Organizations are managing risk without consistently incorporating safety and security into formal meeting policies.

Meeting budgets are expected to grow in 2027, but so is the pressure to justify how that money is spent. According to the latest American Express Global Business Travel Meetings and Events Forecast, 91% of respondents expect overall meetings and events spending to increase.

Bigger budgets, however, won’t necessarily translate into more elaborate events. Much of the additional spending may simply cover higher costs.

Another 91% anticipate higher per-attendee costs for product launches. 84% also expect higher costs for conferences with trade shows.

Rather than abandoning meetings altogether, organizations are reconsidering where they meet and how they spend.

More than a third of respondents in the Amex GBT research are using virtual meeting technology more to address economic pressures. And 35% are changing destinations, and 33% are reducing attendee numbers or moving to smaller venues.

Tammy Morgan, vice president of strategic meetings, sales and account management at Amex GBT Meetings & Events, says the organization is seeing increased interest in secondary cities.

“We’re sourcing more tier two cities than we used to, because obviously the cost is less,” she said.

Instead of automatically selecting major markets, organizations are considering whether less expensive destinations can deliver comparable results.

The same scrutiny extends to individual event expenses.

Morgan said some clients are reducing attendee counts and adjusting food-and-beverage offerings. For example, a traditional breakfast might be replaced with a continental breakfast.

But audiovisual production is proving harder to cut, particularly when it plays an important role in attendee engagement.

The objective is not simply to spend less. It’s to eliminate expenses that don’t contribute meaningfully to a meeting’s goals while protecting those that do.

The New Plan B Mentality

Cost pressures are one part of the equation. Geopolitical instability and other disruptions are forcing organizations to reconsider not just how much they spend on meetings, but where and how those meetings take place.

According to the forecast, 39% of meeting professionals have changed destinations because of geopolitical instability, while 37% have shifted more meetings to virtual formats.

Despite those challenges, only 22% report holding fewer meetings in response to geopolitical instability.

Morgan says organizers can no longer address contingency planning only when a crisis occurs.

“How can we be building programs that can pivot?” she said.

That flexibility must account for more than geopolitical conflicts. Extreme weather, transportation disruptions, and infrastructure problems can also derail carefully planned events.

The forecast revealed a striking disconnect between how organizations say they manage risk and what their formal policies require.

Although 79% of respondents say they use risk management practices for all or most meetings, only 25% explicitly include safety and security provisions in their formal meetings policies.

Morgan calls that gap one of the forecast’s biggest revelations.

During her presentation at IMEX America in Las Vegas, Morgan asked attendees how many had reviewed their meetings policies within the past year. Fewer than 10 hands went up.

“Even though there are a lot of things being put in practice to help programs have more governance and run on a more consistent level, it’s not being put in policy,” she said.

The disconnect raises the question: If risk management isn’t embedded in formal policies, how consistently will those safeguards be applied when something goes wrong?

AI Enters the Balancing Act

With budgets under pressure and planning growing more complex, meeting professionals are turning to AI to help manage competing demands.

The forecast found that 34% plan to use AI in 2027 to give onsite staff insights that personalize attendee experiences. Nearly a third expect to use it for event communications and tracking attendee engagement.

Yet only 24% plan to use AI-enabled venue sourcing, suggesting the technology has yet to gain the same traction in one of the industry’s most consequential planning decisions.

By analyzing attendee preferences and other data, AI helps organizations tailor communications and onsite experiences while potentially reducing time spent on administrative tasks.

But technology alone can't solve the industry’s central challenge: delivering meaningful experiences while managing costs, uncertainty, and rising expectations.

Morgan believes the value of face-to-face meetings has become increasingly clear since the pandemic. What is changing is the level of accountability surrounding those gatherings.

“I think there is just a real sense of moving into 2027 with uncertainty,” she said. “How do we balance what we know the expectation is with the things that are really going to be challenges this year?”

For meeting professionals, 2027 may be less about defending the decision to gather than demonstrating that every dollar spent, every destination selected, and every attendee invited contributes to a measurable result.