2023 Reflections - Jen
Reflecting on what we learnt in 2023, for me, the biggest learning was "The early bird gets the worm".
For those clients of ours that got their events locked in early, it ensured they had more options to choose from including destinations, airlines, hotels, and venues. Those clients that held off were incredibly limited in availability and most times had no alternative options to choose from.
The global impact of everyone in 2023 wanting to event meant that a lot of great locations were already at 100% occupancy. Shoulder season, off peak, flights and venues were snapped up early, and those favourite desired destinations were gone early on. Case in point would be Fiji, where popularity from around the world has gone crazy and therefore prices are also at an all-time high (great for them), but we still saw requests for short turnaround times for the destination and in 90% of the cases we just could not make budget work or availability was just not there. For clients with limitations on travel time and budgets this is not the way to ensure you are getting the biggest bang for your buck!
My learning (again this is a repeat of 2023 for 2024): don't purely focus on the year ahead - start planning the following year’s events in advance, to ensure you have options, such as options for hotels in negotiations but more importantly the best programme for your people in your desired location. We are already seeing for this year that certain months in certain destinations availability is already scarce.
For your 2025 plans it’s as easy as completing a scoping document with Motive and allowing us to create pencil holds on (no money required) hotels and venues and checking best flight routes. We then can monitor the destination of choice, and see how availability is tracking, allowing us, your event professionals, to deliver insight and recommendations, show value in cost negotiations and to ensure more value for your event budget. This will ensure you have more options and have been able to make smarter decisions for your future event planning!
Plan 2025 in 2024 - you will see better results and get the dream programme and dates you desire!
