Spanner in the Works

A Not-So-Warm Welcome to #119 of Business Events World as globalisation grinds to a shuddering halt.

Short of extended hostilities, the first 100 days of the second iteration of a Trump administration could not have dispatched a more disruptive impact on the Business & Professional Events sector.

The combination of global and regional tariffs, a raft of executive orders restricting medical (and other) meetings, or attendance to them (even assuming no need to import goods to exhibit at any other form of trade or intellectual gathering) in the US, threats of neighbourly – and un-neighbourly – annexation of the Arctic, Greenland, Canada, Gaza, and the Gulf of… Mexico?, plus a gangland offer of Minerals for Defence to Ukraine (after the insultathon to the man leading an existential fight for his country and, potentially, Europe) have combined to send world stocks awry and global business confidence – not unsurprisingly – plummeting.

Just when the post-pandemic recovery seemed finally complete, and optimism peaking.

Long sigh.

So, feast your eyes on what might have been, what isn’t, and prepare for what might be.

In Features, AIME Before the Storm, the happier tale of the 2025 edition of the Asia-Pacific Incentives & Meetings Expo in Melbourne last month. BestCities Global Alliance and ICCA deliver strategic impact education to seasoned association leaders in Dublin, WorldPride clings on in DC (not all bets are off, mind, for the May/June celebration of libertarianism in the Land of the Free), and Padraicino tries to guess the future amid news after news, especially from on-the-pulse Andrea Doyle of Skift Meetings, that well… another form of ‘enshittification’ is upon us! (You can learn more about the origin and meaning of ‘enshittification’ from the GDS-Movement’s Chief Futurist, Ed Gillespie, speaking from the CityDNA Autumn Conference and GDS-Forum in Research).

In News, The Iceberg Trustee and High-Protector, Carina Bauer, prepares for the annual IMEX bonanza in Frankfurt in May with ‘Impact 2.0’ but for now let’s agree that everyone’s first and mandatory purpose will be to seek out and ‘Hug an American’ – they need, and deserve, our love!

Before that it’s the turn of AC Forum, the gold standard for European associations, to weigh in behind the Net Zero Carbon Events Movement being administered through the Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC). The Forum President, European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)’s Ben Hainsworth taking a leaf out of his own legacy book to effect the Forum’s own impact project to foster NextGen talent into association management with support from every member of its Board of Directors – a truly upbeat story to silver line a difficult month.

The Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA) joins the anti-tariff coalition and BizBash weighs in with the sector implications of 25% steel and aluminium tariffs.

The most alarming (thus far, at least), for inbound delegates and investors to events in the US came from AMI’s James Lancaster sharing of The Guardian reportage of a French space scientist refused entry – and subsequent deportation – for hurty words towards the administration found on an electronic device, the rationale for which was subsequently denied by the Department of Homeland Security in a report from The New York Times.

Both reports enclosed.

How wary must inbound delegates, or attendees, to all forms of events in the US, be? To take iPhones or laptops – or themselves – that is now the question.

In Case Studies, a video double-bill from the International Congress of Infant Studies (ICIS) held in Glasgow’s SEC as a reminder of the immediate and life-lasting good that emerges for the beneficiaries of professional congresses. To the Scottish east, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre shares its version of the International Papillomavirus Society Conference’s 36th edition surrounding the HPV virus, itself a significant cause to cervical cancer resolved at a genital warts congress in Canberra back in 1984 featuring Dr Ian Frazer in the lead up to the HPV vaccine in 2008 – more from The Power of Conferences here.

Also in Case Studies, Calgary TELUS Convention Centre chief, Kurby Court, explains the long tail ROI of congressional venues – more than a visitor economy!

In Research, Gillespie questions the moral ambition of the Sector in the face of the climate crisis, while the Centre for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) confirms that the US B2B exhibition industry ‘continues to rebound’. Crystal-ball that one when you read the Tourism Economics’ Report that trade wars are expected to cause a sharp decline (-4.3% some say) in US Tourism. ASAE, the regional edition of the Societies of Association Executives weighs in with its Pulse Survey highlighting ‘Financial & Operational Challenges Amid Policy Shifts’ proving its VP, International Relations, Amy Hissrich, right to be nervous at IBTM World! (See video #2 here.)

Also in Research, the Events Industry Council shares its 2025 edition of ‘The Futures Landscape’, and in parallel we share the latest UFI Global Exhibitions Barometer.

ChristchurchNZ shares the first results of ‘The Conference Legacy Project’ and Melbourne double-dips into this edition by sharing its edition of ‘The Positive Impact of Business Events’ Report.

In Opinions, Chris Skeith OBE – the new CEO & MD at The Iceberg Founding Partner, UFI – shares his quest for the global exhibitions industry’s ‘Holy Grail’, namely the trade that takes place, or the subsequent trade stimulated by, attendance at his member events.

Back at the BestCities Global Forum in Dublin, home in January also to the Destinations International Global Leaders Forum, International Gas Union event specialist, Rodney Cox, teams up with Conference Partners International’s Nicky McGrane in the tale of “5 People Walk into A Pub!!”, why national associations need better nurturing if destinations are to succeed in bidding for the international congress.

And there’s feast of news and views from former UFI CEO, Kai Hattendorf (be sure to read ‘Trust and Perception – Moving Targets in Times of Change’- then have a stiff whiskey!), TravelMole joins DI’s Don Welsh, and Boardroom sit down with ISHA’s Caroline MacKenzie who you can also view in the BestCities report from Dublin.

As ever, the world’s leading informers, educators, and conveners share their wares but if there’s one date for the diary, The Iceberg is urging stakeholders and influencers – all, but especially our American cousins – to book in to the Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA) Legislative Action Day in Washington DC – in person or online – on the 29th May.

Our Man on The Hill, Tommy Goodwin, will be leading the charge!

Join The Iceberg in Singapore in April for The Meetings Show by Northstar Meetings Group and The Business of Events by PCMA before convening in Frankfurt.

Meanwhile, remember to join The Iceberg Movement here!

The Curator