Posted by Vincent Alonzo Responses (0)

Toronto, Jan. 9 - At today's plenary session at PCMA's first international annual meeting, Peter Yesawich, chairman & CEO of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, led a panel discussion on trends that will impact the meetings industry. Top of the list among the panelists was the changing demographics of meeting attendees. Roger Dow, president & CEO of the travel Industry Association of America, urged attendees to rethink their meetings strategies to be more appealing to the younger generation of attendees. "For many attendees born after 1980, the concept of networking is synonymous with instant messaging," Dow said. "Younger folks don't care as much about face time as we did. This is going to dramatically change the way we plan meeting agendas. If meetings are to continue to be meaningful business tools, planners are going to have to adapt to this new attendee. If they don't, meetings and conferences may go the way of the dinosaur."