Group demand holds for 2027. The hotel that gets it may change.

Meeting planners surveyed by Amex GBT expect bigger budgets next year. When costs rise or the news turns, most keep the meeting and move it to another city or another hotel.

by Markus Busch

American Express Global Business Travel is the largest travel management company in corporate travel, and every October it asks planners what the coming year looks like. The 2027 edition of its meetings forecast came out last week. Of the 500 planners YouGov surveyed in 11 countries, 93% are optimistic about next year. A year ago it was 85%. The year before, 74%. These are plans, and Amex GBT sells meetings management and venue sourcing to the companies the planners work for.

The rest of the report shows what that optimism means for a hotel. Planners expect to run more meetings. They expect every one of them to cost more. And they have a settled answer for when the cost or the news gets in the way.

91% expect a bigger budget

Nine in ten planners expect their meetings budget to rise in 2027. About one in ten expects an increase above 11%. They plan more meetings of every type, from internal team meetings to incentive trips.

The hotels that report their group business say the same about bookings already made. On its second-quarter call, Park Hotels & Resorts said group revenue on the books for 2027 at its core hotels runs more than 6% ahead of last year at the same point. Xenia Hotels & Resorts reported group room revenue on the books for the second half of 2026 up 12%.

Both own large full-service hotels in American cities, so their figures describe convention and big-group business. What they add is signed contracts: group business for 2027 already on the books, moving in the same direction as the planners' answers.

22% would hold fewer meetings

Planners expect the cost per attendee to rise for every kind of meeting next year: 91% say so for product launches, 84% for conferences, 83% for incentives. Yet cost has fallen from their biggest challenge last year to fifth place. Amex GBT says planners now feel better equipped to handle it.

The report shows what being equipped looks like. Faced with geopolitical instability, only 22% hold fewer meetings. Nearly four in ten have changed the destination or city, 37% have added virtual meetings, and 30% have made the meeting smaller or changed the venue. Rising prices get the same treatment. A quarter hold fewer events, 35% swap destinations, 33% change venues and 31% cut food and beverage spend per person. That last cut lands on the banquet order: the plated lunch becomes a buffet, the open bar becomes two drink tickets. And 24% have switched hotels.

A canceled meeting is a loss for everyone in town. A moved meeting is someone else's win. The room block, the banquet order and the coffee breaks all still happen, at a different property or in a different city.

That shows up in one place a GM can check: the lost-business report. Groups lost to "another destination" or "another hotel" are the 2027 figure that already sits in your own system.

Most sales offices log why a group went elsewhere in a single dropdown field, when they log it at all. Next year that field is worth filling in properly.

35% say attendees want a personal touch

What planners shop for is shifting as well. In the survey, 35% say attendees now expect more personalized interactions, 31% want better-organized networking, and 31% want hands-on workshops instead of sitting through presentations. Amex GBT reports planners drifting from conventional hotel meeting space toward restaurants, cultural sites and boutique venues. When it comes to choosing the destination, ease of access, attendee safety and cost still rank first. The "wow" factor now sits in the top five.

Cvent, which runs the largest meeting-sourcing marketplace, found something similar this spring when it surveyed 1,650 planners: 48% are now sourcing non-hotel venues, restaurants first among them. Cvent sells access to those venues as well as to hotels, so this is a second vendor making the same point. Neither figure shows how many meetings actually left the hotel.

What the figures do show is where the hotel gets judged. Most hotels already own the rooms planners are now looking for elsewhere: the restaurant, the terrace, the private dining room, the wine cellar. In a typical group proposal they sit on the last page, under catering.

Barcelona leads Europe, and availability is tight

European planners share the global confidence, with nine in ten expecting bigger budgets too, though they worry slightly more about cost than their peers elsewhere. Their top priority for 2027 is the attendee experience, and they rank technology higher than planners in the Americas, from tools that measure what a meeting returned to generative AI.

Amex GBT expects higher prices and constrained availability across Europe next year. Its own meetings staff, 186 of them, name Barcelona, London, Madrid, Paris and Lisbon as the continent's top destinations. Its Hotel Monitor, published in September, already has corporate rates in those cities rising: Madrid by 6.1% to 9.2%, London by 3.6% to 5.4%, Paris by 3.1% to 4.8%.

Then there is the heat. After the record temperatures of summer 2026, Amex GBT warns planners about outdoor events, older venues without cooling, and destinations exposed to wildfires or transport disruption. A planner who reads that will have two questions before signing. What happens to the terrace dinner at 38°C? And does the ballroom stay cool with 200 people in it at four in the afternoon?

Read also: Amex GBT has already told your corporate buyers what your 2027 rate increase should be

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