Meetings Mean Business Coalition, U.S. Travel Association's meetings advocacy initiative, partnered earlier this year with Skift, a travel industry intelligence and marketing platform, to survey Millennials' expectations about meetings. Some of the research's takeaways include these:
- Millennials place a lot of value on developing external professional networks and engaging in real world education. Corporate and association meetings are one of the few places Millennials can accomplish both.
- The emphasis on technology as a generational differentiator for Millennials has oversimplified and overshadowed other factors that define Millennials' motivations in the professional workplace and therefore, the meetings and events industry.
- For many, technology is a way to complement live engagement and network virtually before and after a live event occurs.
- The move toward open-learning meeting space, where attendees can roam among casual "campfire" sessions, is helping Millennials personalize their educational journey in a more spontaneous and organic process.
