 Dear Power of Travel Coalition,
Our efforts over the past several years to amplify the travel industry's relevance with policymakers resulted in a major win for our industry this week. Yesterday in Orlando, FL, President Obama announced a national strategy on travel and tourism to boost travel to and within the United States.
Key components of the President's initiative include the creation of an interagency task force charged with developing a National Travel & Tourism Strategy, shortening visa wait times, expanding Global Entry, promoting our national parks, and working to expand the visa waiver program.
 UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, continues to develop market research to provide reliable data on the international exhibition market. Several recent studies provide statistics giving a good picture of the industry at three levels: venues, the events held in those venues, and the companies who organize those events.
UFI’s 2011 “World Map of Exhibition Venues” identifies 1,197 venues with a minimum of 5,000 square meters of indoor exhibition space worldwide, corresponding to a total gross indoor exhibition space of 32.6 million square meters. This is an increase of 57 venues since 2006, with an overall growth of 3.4 million square meters (54% of the increase is related to new venues and 46% to extensions of existing venues).
 The inaugural IMEX America tradeshow last fall flooded meetings media pipelines with US and global industry buzz, plus tons of post-show survey data. From there, the IMEX Group released its predictions for the 2012 meetings, incentive travel, and events market, including the following.
1. Business is looking up – globalization is increasing.
In post-show survey comments, buyers indicated an uptick in business over the last 12 months — though predominantly at a conservative rate and mostly short-term focused. There is also a trend toward more, but smaller or shorter, meetings and events and slight growth in attendance at association meetings and events.
 What a difference a year can make. Unlike the start of 2011, the Incentive Research Foundation’s (IRF) latest survey of incentive industry trends finds planners struggling with the effects of an economy caught in a slow recovery.
According to IRF President Melissa Van Dyke, “Survey participants demonstrated that their program’s sensitivity to internal pressures, competitor reactions, and perceptions of extravagance were lower than in the spring and actually at a level equivalent to or below 2008. However, they cited the economy as having a significant impact on all incentive plans.”
 Meetings demand in 2012 appears to be on the rise, according to a recent survey and in-depth interviews of meeting experts, including planners, buyers, and hotel suppliers based around the world, conducted by American Express Meetings & Events. Of the meeting planners surveyed, 42% of North American respondents see signs of increased activity from their clients. Additionally, 60% of meeting suppliers also expect the number of meetings planned to increase.
Higher travel and meeting costs are anticipated, driving the need for companies to focus on striking the right balance of cost effectiveness and experience impact when selecting venues.
by Lynn Kaniper
 With the meetings industry on the rebound, it’s a good time to make your pitch for a bigger meetings budget. Once your budget gets the go-ahead, use the following red-hot meeting trends as a starting point for spending it wisely.
1. Green Is Not Just a Buzzword.
Environmentally conscious meeting management is gaining importance, and clients will want to see your policies in advance and in action. Review your green practices to make sure they are current. Don’t forget to extend policies to dining, as the “locavore” movement, which focuses on locally produced and sourced food, is growing more and more followers.
2. The Surprising Return of Incentive Travel.It’s gradual… it’s cautious… and it’s certainly not at the same level as the 1990s, but luxury properties and international destinations are seeing an increase in incentive business. The year 2012 is the year to get back in the incentive meetings game.
 Editor's note (December 2, 2011 @ 10:30 a.m. CT): Here at Midwest Meetings, we don't necessarily feel we should need to defend the conference costs incurred by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the recent Mortgage Bankers Association's annual meeting in Chicago. After all, the costs breakdown in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's response appears to contain justifiable line items. It looks pretty self-explanatory to us.
But alas, there's the rub: it makes sense to those who know what they're looking at.
Lawmakers, mainstream media, and the general public, on the other hand, don't have that meetings industry "insider" perspective. And $640,000 does sound like an awfully big number if one doesn't understand how to put it into perspective. So how do we, as an industry, get the message across?
Scroll down for updates as Midwest Meetings continues to gain commentary and insight regarding the latest black eye to the meetings industry from the mainstream media.
 Jonathan Tisch, Loews Hotels Jonathan Tisch, co-chair of the board, Loews Corporation and chairman and CEO, Loews Hotels, served as a witness before the Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The hearing, “Tourism in America: Moving Our Economy Forward,” focused on the travel industry’s impact on the U.S. economy.
Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a long-time champion of the lodging industry, called the hearing to highlight the opportunity for the U.S. to create jobs and bolster the economy by attracting international travelers. Senate Commerce Committee Chair John Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Subcommittee Ranking Member, echoed the sentiment and expressed continued support for making international travelers a top priority in order to grow the economy and create U.S. jobs.
 The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) announces the results from The 2011 Changing Environment of Exhibitions Study, which explores how the exhibition industry is evolving and provides key market insights into opportunities and threats.
The findings explore the current and planned use of the full array of available marketing, sales, and communications tactics; positioning of business-to-business exhibitions in this mix; current, high-priority marketing and sales objectives and perceived value of using business-to-business exhibitions to achieve them; as well as the factors that drive decisions to exhibit or not.
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