I attended the Möten & Events (= Meetings & Events) trade fair in Gothenburg last week and although I knew that this industry is defined mainly by Hotels and conference centres who mainly think about room bookings when they say “meetings”, I was nevertheless struck that the entire fair was basically only hotels and conference centres. Okay, not 100%, but probably 97%. There were two other categories of exhibitors: companies offering some sort of entertainment element for business meetings and companies offering support in finding and booking meeting locations and services.
So, in other words, the Swedish meeting industry is almost entirely concerned with the physical aspect of meetings, i.e. the coming together in a single location. That’s pretty basic, I think. @micke.darmell (who was there offering “Ask me anything about meetings” advice) agreed but pointed out that things are changing. Although it is not apparent by looking at the conference exhibits, companies are starting to become interested in how to actually organize good meetings (apart from food, fun, and location) and hotels are starting to offer advice professional advice to their clients (or should I say: are starting to be trained in how to offer advice?). So things are slowly starting to move, but we are still a long way from having meeting organization, meeting design, or - as @maarten.vanneste would say - meeting architecture as a common sense topic that people talk about.
So what does the so called meeting industry look like where you are? Or, if you are in Sweden, perhaps you have some nuances to add to my description (which is, after all, only based on impressions from a single trade fair)?
Oh, and if you are offering services related to meetings, why don’t you mention them in the #market category so that people get a more realistic picture of what might be seen as part of the meeting industry?