Pathable celebrates Global Meetings Industry Day 2019

Pathable celebrates Global Meetings Industry Day 2019

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Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID), held on April 4, 2019, brings together #eventprofs from across the meetings and events industry, showcasing the impact that business meetings, conferences, conventions, incentive travel, trade shows and exhibitions have on our industry. Meeting professionals across the world are participating in the international day of advocacy with more than 200 events being held in 41 countries.

Meetings Mean Business

Today we wanted to celebrate why meetings mean business and how connecting face to face at events can change the world. We believe it so much we founded a company around it. More than 10 years ago, Pathable created a mobile event app to help shorten the path between two people. It’s easier to meet new people and make connections face to face when you’ve already linked up and talked to other attendees while planning your personal conference agenda or challenging someone in the upcoming tradeshow scavenger hunt.

Share Your Story about Why It’s Worth Meeting About

As you share your story today about why you think meetings mean business, we wanted to offer up some of our favorite statistics about our favorite industry:

Did you know that direct spendings in meetings and events recently passed the $1 trillion mark, serving 1.4 billion attendees worldwide? That means our industry is larger than the airline industry or the motion picture industry.

Direct Impacts of Global Business Events

Not enough for ya? How about the direct impacts of global business events, taken from one of the latest Events Industry Council study:

  • Number of participants: Business events involved more than 1.5 billion participants across more than 180 countries.
  • Direct spending (business sales): Business events generated more than $1.07 trillion of direct spending, representing spending to plan and produce business events, business events-related travel, and other direct spending, such as spending by exhibitors.
  • Direct GDP (gross domestic product) and employment: Business events supported 10.3 million direct jobs globally and generated $621.4 billion of direct GDP.
  • Average spending per participant: On average, $704 was spent per business event participant.
  • Top countries: The top 50 countries accounted for $1.03 trillion of business events direct spending, representing 96% of the global total.

If we were a country, business events sector would rank as the 22nd largest economy globally

Which is a heck of a lot of total impacts because of global business events:

After accounting for indirect and induced impacts, business events supported a total global economic impact in 2017 of:

  • $2.5 trillion of output (business sales)
  • 26 million jobs
  • $1.5 trillion of GDP (representing contribution to global gross domestic product)
  • The business events sector directly generated more output (business sales) than many large global sectors, including consumer electronics and computers and office equipment.

The $1.5 trillion of total GDP supported by global business events would rank the sector as the 14th largest economy globally, larger than the economies of countries such as Australia, Spain, Mexico, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia. Based on its $621.4 billion direct GDP impact, the business events sector would rank as the 22nd largest economy globally.

Share #GMID on Social Year-Round

It’s worth meeting about. Our team is standing up today at GMID events around the world, from LA to Vancouver, North Carolina to Atlanta celebrating with events industry professionals that meetings mean business. Join us and tag yourself on social #GMID19 or #GMID. We can’t wait to hear your story.