Drive revenue from hotel events and business meetings

Meetings, incentives, conventions and events (MICE) business has long been a lucrative segment for the hotel industry. During the pandemic, the industry pivoted to invest in technology to support virtual and hybrid activities. As demand for in-person interaction has returned, so have familiar MICE revenue opportunities. New ones have also emerged, driven by heightened expectations of technology and increasingly blurred lines between business and leisure. Data indicates that business travel budgets are now approaching pre-pandemic levels.¹ Live events are a significant driver of that rebound — business travel planners say higher participation at live events is the top reason their teams travel more now than in recent years.²

The network connectivity and applications that enabled people to continue working from their homes during the pandemic now allow work to happen anywhere. Almost 60% of employees who work remotely do so from a location other than their home or a coworking space.³ This untethering from a single work location has furthered the overlap of people’s professional and personal lives — 63% of professionals believe that remote or hybrid work encourages them or their friends and family to travel more.⁴ It has also led to the coining of new terms such as workcation and bleisure, reflecting the growing popularity of blending work and play.

With the right IT infrastructure to meet increased technology expectations, hotels can attract travelers for events, business and leisure and continue to drive revenue as guests and attendees shift between modes.
 

43%: Increase in U.S. exhibition industry revenues between 2022 and 2024.⁵
 

Travel trends raise technology expectations

Hotels looking to capitalize on MICE business must have the right IT infrastructure to support multiple event formats and to meet the demanding technology expectations of attendees who increasingly combine business and leisure travel. Let’s take a closer look at what hotels can expect.
 

82% of event attendees say they prefer in-person events over online events.⁶
 

All events are technology-enabled

Business travel has rebounded, with 58% of corporate travel managers expecting spending to increase in 2025.⁷ Conferences, trade shows and exhibitions are playing a big role in travel growth, and more than six in 10 business travelers planned to attend at least one event in 2024.⁸

Enthusiasm for in-person events has not eliminated remote options, with flexibility ranking among the appealing benefits — 60% of virtual event attendees say they choose those events because they can access them on demand.⁹ In 2024, 41% of event planners scheduled a hybrid event, and 24% scheduled a virtual event.¹⁰ Continued interest in events with remote options presents hotels with an opportunity to realize revenue from pandemic-era investments in virtual event platforms and IT infrastructure that support hybrid gatherings.
 

74% of professionals add personal days to their business trips.¹¹
 

Event organizers have also come to expect technology infrastructure and applications at live events, with analytics and data collection ranking as the most in-demand digital services.¹² To keep pace with expectations, almost nine in 10 (87%) meeting and event planners held steady or increased their budget for technology and tech support in 2024.¹³
 

More leisure guests mean business

The rise of the so-called workcation or bleisure trip is erasing the distinction between business and personal travel. For hotels, every event attendee may also be a vacationing guest, which can create revenue opportunities.
 

$533B: Estimated size of the U.S. bleisure travel market by 2030 (up from $216B in 2022).¹⁴
 

More than three-quarters of business travelers (77%) have paid for a hotel or airfare upgrade out of their own pocket or with personal points, and eight in 10 say they get more excited about a trip when they know they can take advantage of airline or hotel loyalty perks.¹⁵ This crossover between travel modes can translate to longer stays at hotels, with two-thirds of corporate travelers saying they extended a business trip for leisure in 2023.¹⁶

Regardless of why guests stay at a hotel, they have demanding expectations about access to technology in general and WiFi in particular. According to one study, reliable and secure WiFi is the most important technology influencing travelers’ hotel selections.¹⁷

Network connectivity and WiFi are top-of-mind for travelers. Still, they are not the only tech-influenced factors: Nearly three-quarters (74%) of travelers indicate they would pay more for lodging with enhanced technology, while 64% like to check in using their mobile device and 60% prefer using it as a room key.¹⁸

To meet these expectations, hotels are investing in technology — 81% of hoteliers believe it will likely be more important for their success in the next five years.¹⁹ Such investments support elevating the guest experience and can also lower operational costs. Among hotel executives, 70% are turning to technology tools to automate some of their operations and boost employee efficiency,²⁰ and 57% of hotel general managers expect automation to benefit guest experiences and improve their bottom lines.²¹
 

Security risks from meeting rooms to guest rooms

With the increasing digitization of information, hotels hold a wealth of sensitive data. That creates a tempting target for cybercriminals on the hunt for guests’ personally identifiable information (PII) — the most common type of data stolen or compromised²² — financial records and more. Approximately 64% of hotel customers say they’re concerned about privacy and security issues that come with new technologies.²³
 

$3.82M: The average cost of a data breach in a hospitality organization as of 2024 (up 13% from the previous year).²⁴
 

The threat of a breach has pushed security high on hotel priority lists. In one study, 76% of hotel operators say enhancing data security is an important initiative.²⁵ And it’s not just cybersecurity — 68% say the same about improving the physical safety of guests and staff.²⁶

While adopting new technologies enhances event and guest experiences, it also creates new complications and requires new skills. Staffing to meet these needs can pose hurdles for hotel operators, with more than half (54%) saying a lack of skilled expertise is a top technology challenge.²⁷
 

In-demand technology for events and meetings

To support the attendee experience, event and meeting planners expect hotels to be able to provide technology amenities. To be competitive when responding to an event request for proposals (RFP) and grow MICE business, hotels should be prepared to include technology services such as:

• Providing specific WiFi bandwidth levels to ensure availability for attendees.
• Offering multiple WiFi SSID networks.
• Supporting vanity SSID names to reflect event branding.
• Providing seamless WiFi connectivity from guest room to conference room so no additional network logins are needed.
• Enabling the option for paid sponsorship of event WiFi.
• Facilitating capture of attendee emails from WiFi users for marketing purposes.
• Supplying network-connected digital signage throughout the venue for wayfinding and conference agenda messaging.
• Offering personalized event communications to groups or individual attendees via in-room entertainment or unified communications (UC) systems.
• Supporting event messaging with videos and slideshows via in-room entertainment systems or hotel TV channel insertion.
• Delivering lag-free connectivity for robust, sometimes video-heavy presentations.
• Ensuring the network flawlessly supports wireless microphones for use in Q&A sessions.
• Enabling optimized bandwidth coverage in large venues with a high concentration of wireless devices by starting with an expert-led network design.
   

Event technology and software is the top investment priority for event organizers.²⁸

The right partner to help your hospitality business thrive

Spectrum Enterprise® has more than 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry, and over 96% of today’s top hotel brands rely on Spectrum Enterprise for technology solutions. We have the technical expertise and solutions you need to create exceptional guest experiences and help increase profits through event business.

Dedicated Fiber Internet: Improve guest satisfaction and staff productivity with high-speed, scalable, nationwide internet connectivity. Dedicated Fiber Internet provides symmetrical connectivity up to 100 Gbps, with service-level agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing 100% uptime all the way to the handoff point at your location. The dedicated connection is not shared with others and is backed by 100%, 24/7/365 U.S.-based support.

Managed Network Edge for Hospitality: Experience a powerful network and WiFi designed for hotels and resorts. Managed Network Edge is an end-to-end fully managed platform that provides better guest WiFi while improving your staff’s network experience. Powered by Cisco Meraki, the platform includes an intuitive portal that offers powerful visibility and control from anywhere.

Unified Communications for Hospitality: Enable better communications and collaboration for hotel staff, manage guest-focused services and deliver personalized experiences with this cloud-based service. The service integrates with your existing property management system or via our hospitality portal and can help you improve revenue growth and secure guest loyalty.

Managed WiFi: Managed WiFi is a turnkey, fully managed solution to meet your current and future needs with a highly reliable, fast connectivity experience for event attendees and guests. Keep your brand at the fore with customized splash pages and guest landing pages while capturing new revenue streams from non-guests, group travelers and events. Networks are proactively monitored 24/7/365, ensuring uptime and availability across your properties.

Secure Access with Cisco Duo: Help protect access to your network and sensitive information with Secure Access with Cisco Duo. A different approach to traditional VPN, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and identity management capabilities ensure your employees have secure access to internal applications, regardless of location or device. Your hotel will also gain visibility into who and what devices are using your network at any time. This creates a login experience that’s not only secure but easy and consistent, too.

Cloud Security with Cisco+ Secure Connect: Defend your network users and data, both in the cloud and on your network. Cloud Security with Cisco+ Secure Connect ensures a consistent and universal security experience regardless of user location with cloud-based firewalls, secure web gateways, zero trust network access (ZTNA) and more. Your busy IT team gains immediate visibility into devices and network traffic, activity and threats via a single portal to help protect your sensitive data.

DDoS Protection: Help keep your hotel network available by halting volumetric distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS Protection is a subscription-based service that uses proprietary machine learning and advanced analytics to identify anomalies in traffic flows and respond to and mitigate attacks on your network.

Smart cameras and environmental sensors: Help protect your employees, guests and property with physical security solutions. Establish a comprehensive view of your hotel with smart cameras that can deliver valuable insights about customer behavior patterns while safeguarding vulnerable areas. Environmental sensors intelligently monitor your facilities and other critical physical spaces, alerting hotel staff about potential adverse environmental events.

The right approach, supported by the right technology and delivered by the right partner, will help you grow your hospitality business in ways that allow you to thrive now, and in the years ahead. Discover how Spectrum Enterprise helps enhance the event and guest experience with solutions and services designed for the unique needs of today’s hotels.

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1. Eileen Crowley, Kate Ferrara, Matthew Usdin et al., “Upward Climb With Uphill Struggles: 2024 Deloitte Corporate Travel Study,” Deloitte, July 16, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. “State of Hybrid Work 2024,” Owl Labs, 2024.
4. “The Future of Business Travel: The Latest Trends and Expectations,” Global Rescue, August 22, 2024.
5. “UFI Global Exhibition Barometer 33rd Edition,” UFI: The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, August 2024.
6. “The Freeman Trends Report: 2024 Attendee Intent and Behavior,” Freeman, January 2024.
7. Crowley, Ferrara, Usdin et al., “Upward Climb With Uphill Struggles.”
8. Ibid.
9. “The Freeman Trends Report.”
10. Victoria Akinsowon, “10 Event Industry Trends You Must Know in 2024,” Cvent, January 19, 2024.
11. “The Future of Business Travel.”
12. “3rd UFI-Industry Partners Benchmark Survey: 2023,” UFI: The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, January 2024.
13. “The Latest Scoop: 2024 Meetings Industry PULSE Survey Results,” Cvent, June 19, 2024.
14. “U.S. Bleisure Travel Market Size & Outlook, 2022-2030,” Grand View Research Horizon Databook.
15. “American Express Uncovers Latest Business Travel Trends and Five Trending Destinations in the US,” Amex for Business, July 16, 2024.
16. Crowley, Ferrara, Usdin et al., “Upward Climb With Uphill Struggles.”
17. “Customer Engagement Technology Study 2024,” Hospitality Technology, 2024.
18. Ibid.
19. Jordan Hollander, “75+ Hospitality Statistics You Should Know (2024),” HotelTechReport, November 1, 2023.
20. “Hospitality Tech Investment Pays Off,” PwC, 2023.
21. Eileen Crowley, Michael Daher, Danielle Hawkins et al., “Toward Travel’s Frictionless Frontline: Integrating Technology and Workforce,” Deloitte, 2023.
22. “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024,” Ponemon Institute and IBM Security, July 2024.
23. “Customer Engagement Technology Study 2024.”
24. “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024.”
25. “2024 Lodging Technology Study: Digital Transformation & ROI,” Hospitality Technology, 2024.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. “3rd UFI-Industry Partners Benchmark Survey.”