In a move demonstrating its increasing interest in business travel, Airbnb has acquired Gaest.com — proving the duo is a match made in heaven just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Are you feeling uncertain about how to get more millennials to your event? Then you won’t want to miss the next TSNN Ask Me Anything chat, Marketing Your Next Event to Millennial Professionals, set for Thursday, Feb. 28 at 2 p.m. EST.

The first graduate-level program in the U.S. designed for meeting and event professionals will begin in August.

A partnership between San Diego State University’s L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and MPI, the majority of the 18-month program can be completed online, on your own time. The only portion of the program requiring travel is two on-campus weeks in San Diego. Sounds like a pretty great gig, right?

The events industry is financially healthy — and growing, according to a new report from Eventbrite.

The global ticketing and event technology platform company has released its annual Pulse Report, which aggregates survey data from more than 1,200 event professionals based in the U.S. and Canada. Approximately one third of the participants organize business events.

PSAV is known by many planners as the in-house or preferred audio-visual provider at leading venues across the nation. In fact, PSAV has a presence in nearly 1,600 locations within 10 different countries.

2018 was a banner year for the Meetings Mean Business Coalition (MMBC) — an industry-wide coalition focused on showing the value of face-to-face meetings — and this week, at the PCMA Convening Leaders conference, representatives shared plans for building on that success in 2019 and beyond.

Julie Coker Graham, MMBC co-chair and president and CEO of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, stated that in 2018, the coalition created deeper, more sustained engagements among industry economic influencers.  

Freeman has expanded its offerings to clients even more by acquiring mdg, a full-service event marketing and public relations agency.

The acquisition enhances the Freeman spectrum of services from pre-event marketing and on-site user experience to post-show communications based on data-informed insights.

“The events business is undergoing a significant transformation - one that requires a sophisticated degree of integration around the convergence of brand strategy, data and content,” said Bob Priest-Heck, president and CEO, Freeman.

Hannover, Germany-based mega-show CEBIT, which was focused on computers and in its height attracted up to 1 million attendees, will no longer exist as a standalone event, according to Deutsche Messe officials.

Deutsche Messe is streamlining its event portfolio and will integrate CEBIT's industry-related topics into the HANNOVER MESSE event, while also developing additional CEBIT topics into specialist events for decision-makers from vertical industries.

IBTM World’s goal is to bring together and connect people from across the global meetings industry to create better business results. With more than 15,000 attendees expected and a reported record-setting 77,651 pre-booked business meetings — a five percent increase from last year’s event — the event is well on its way.

The more things change, the more some things stay the same. A new report from Development Counsellors International (DCI) highlights the changes, challenges and trends taking place within the meetings and events industry while showing that the power of face-to-face interactions remains strong.