The Chicago market in May led the U.S. meetings and events industry by volume for the second month in a row, according to Knowland. Second place again went to Washington, DC, with Los Angeles/Long Beach in third. This data is a subset of the company’s sales intelligence platform designed to help hoteliers build and protect a hotel’s revenue base.
In terms of corporate industry segments for the month, sports and entertainment showed the strongest performance with 199.7% of 2019 event volume, while training /education was a low performer with 76.8% of 2019 volume.
Year-over-year comparison: May 2023 event volume increased 70.4% over May 2022.
Top five markets (by event volume): Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles/Long Beach, Dallas and San Diego. The top drivers for these markets were:
- Chicago: national association, wedding, pharma/biotech, education and healthcare.
- Washington, DC: National association, travel, education, charity/non-profit/social and training/education.
- Los Angeles: Education, wedding, national association, financial/banking and technology.
- Dallas: Healthcare, financial/banking, technology, wedding and national associations.
- San Diego: National association, wedding, technology, pharma/biotech and healthcare.
Top five markets (by percentage growth): The top five markets by year-over-year growth in meetings and events were Norfolk-Virginia Beach, VA; Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC; Oklahoma City, OK; Hawaii-Kauai Islands; Salt Lake City-Ogden, UT.