Airline alliance oneworld has relaunched its Meetings & Events sales tool, offering preferential fares to organisers of international events, as new research maps seven trends shaping global gatherings to 2030.
The relaunch gives meeting planners a single route to discounted travel across the alliance’s 15 member airlines, which together serve nearly 1,000 destinations. For the trade, it is a new channel for group business that sits outside individual airline contracts, with delegates booking their own flights from wherever they start.
The product is aimed at events with at least 50 delegates travelling independently to a shared destination. Organisers receive a booking link to share with attendees or add to an event website, and each delegate then books from their own departure point, so planners do not have to manage a group booking.
The launch coincides with a trend report produced with Globetrender, the future-of-travel intelligence consultancy. It identifies seven trends for events between 2027 and 2030: the human premium, the return on presence, experience-first events, destination as content, geo-compression, loyalty ecosystems and meeting airside.
The report argues that as artificial intelligence makes information widely available, in-person connection becomes more valuable, but organisers will have to show the return on getting people into a room. It also expects conferences to borrow from festivals and immersive entertainment, and host cities to become a draw in their own right.
Geo-compression, it says, will see long-haul flights and airline networks reshape which destinations are viable, while loyalty partnerships between airlines and hotels extend rewards beyond the flight. Airports and nearby hotels are also emerging as meeting venues in their own right.
“The best events create relationships, ideas and opportunities that are difficult to replicate virtually,” said Roger Blackburn, vice president of Commercial and Loyalty at oneworld.
Jenny Southan, chief executive of Globetrender, described “a new golden age of gathering” as AI makes information abundant and the value of being physically present rises.
The announcement was made in Las Vegas on October 13. Elsewhere in the sector, WTTC is gathering 200 travel and tourism CEOs in Malta this month, one of the season’s largest in-person industry meetings.