Meeting Professionals International released the first edition of its new Meetings OutlookTM, a quarterly report offering a unique perspective on the future of the meeting and event industry with information provided by more than 5,000 MPI members, including 700 senior meeting professionals on MPI's Business Research Panel.

The report covers new trends, as well as innovations on the horizon and replaces the bi-monthly Business Barometer previously published by MPI.

Meetings Outlook is available for free for both MPI members and non-members, making it more accessible to the broader meeting and event community and beyond.

Also, the new report's survey questions focus on what is coming down the road, rather than presenting an assessment of the current business environment.

"MPI spent months conducting research, analyzing the results and designing the Meetings Outlook," said Christian Savelli, senior director of business intelligence at MPI. "This new report is more comprehensive and insightful, and we believe meeting and event professionals will find it to be a valuable resource for strategic business planning."

The 2014 winter edition of the Meetings Outlook predicts increasing attention to meeting design, hybrid and virtual meetings, social media, tech innovations and the overall health of the meeting and event industry.

One of the findings of the report concluded: "In what appears to be a leading indicator of an economic recovery, U.S. and Canadian meeting professionals forecast a 5 percent improvement in overall business conditions in the coming year, according to the meeting professionals surveyed for this report. European meeting and event professionals expect to see a 4 percent improvement."

In addition, U.S. meeting professionals expect a 3.9 percent increase in meeting attendance and a 2.4 percent hike in budgets. Meanwhile, in Europe, meeting professionals forecast a 2.4 percent rise in attendance and a 1.6 percent increase in budgets.  

Forty-five percent of the respondents said they saw their budgets increasing, for another 40 percent it was staying the same and 15 percent were seeing budget decreases.

Technology also was a major focus in the report, with 54 percent of the meeting professionals who responded indicating they had used virtual or hybrid event solutions.

Social media still seems to be vexing for some, with 16 percent saying they don’t have a social media strategy at all, 48 percent saying they adopted to new options and techniques and 25 percent saying they had a clear social media strategy.

MPI members will receive a printed copy of the Meetings Outlook in the mail each quarter in The Meeting ProfessionalTM magazine. The 2014 winter edition was mailed with the February issue of the magazine, and a digital copy is also available online at www.mpiweb.org/meetingsoutlook.