Dear members, dear colleagues, 

Ahead of our Global Congress in Las Vegas, I have had the opportunity to connect with our members and community in Asia, Europe, and North America in recent weeks – having been in Bangkok, Düsseldorf, New York. And when you read this, we will be in Singapore with a team, jointly producing the Asia CEO Summit, a collaboration between AEO, SACEOS, SISO, and UFI. 

In all my conversations some themes and topics came up and come up reliably: the changing customer expectations, talents and training, and the challenges of making ours a low to zero carbon, sustainable industry. 

This matches with what for me is one of the key results from our most recent Barometer. There, we asked about the most relevant strategic issues we are facing as an industry in the next five years. Clearly the number one issue there: Changing customer expectations. Followed by staffing, digitisation, climate related regulations, and (De)Globalisation. 

All these are interconnected, of course. In New York, at the inaugural “Sustainable Events Summit” that UFI has been supporting and backing, some participants connected the dots – linking customer expectations, talent, and (De)Globalisation to the need to for the industry to drive sustainability efforts fast and hard. At the same time, you can just as well connect digitisation with changing customer needs, talent, and climate regulations.  

Whichever way you look at it, these themes are interconnected, and they need a wider conversation.  

It is exactly that what we are preparing for everyone in Las Vegas at this year’s Global Congress. In dedicated content blocks, we will share the state of our industry, tackle the most relevant strategy issues through a new blend of talks, presentations, and panels. We will run spotlight sessions on implementations and best practices. And we will have lots of opportunities to forge new connections and to learn more about the US market and its potential.  

Reflecting on many conversations in recent weeks, and with the UFI team working with our global set of speakers, I believe we are about to share one of the best content programmes ever with you in a month’s time. The team and I are looking forward to having you with us!