Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
Las Vegas is projected to be the top meeting destination of 2026, passing Chicago and New York, which took the second and third spots, respectively, in the American Express Global Business Travel’s latest Meetings and Events Forecast.
Steve Hill, CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, was surprised that the city — which he said for 30 years has been the top destination for trade shows — had not already been at the top. Las Vegas was projected as the No. 4 destination for meetings in North America in the 2025 forecast.
Hill said “2026 is a great year for meetings and trade shows in Las Vegas. We’re excited about the growth of the industry here and the demand for Las Vegas.”
The excitement begins this week with the annual CES show, which is projected to bring about 140,000 visitors to Southern Nevada. Last year, 142,465 conventiongoers attended.
The forecast is based on a survey of over 600 event professionals in eight countries, conducted over the summer by YouGov and Amex GBT, a software and services company for travel, expenses and meeting events.
The survey reflected Hill’s confidence, with optimism in the meeting and events industry at an all-time high since 2021 and 85% of professionals positive as in-person formats return as the norm, according to Richard Atkinson-Toal, global vice president of Brand and Experience Studio at Amex GBT Meetings & Events, which delivers over 77,000 events annually.
The Global Meetings and Events Forecast is meant to start a conversation about the industry’s future, Atkinson-Toal wrote in an email, and the surveyed industry panel predicts that more than half of meetings and events in 2026 will be in person.
About 6 million visitors come to Las Vegas for meetings and trade shows, Hill said, and the city plays host to 22,000 to 24,000 meetings annually.
Those who come for a meeting tend to stay almost twice as long — or longer — as their counterparts who come for leisure, Hill said. A meeting visitor is also more likely to stay in a room by themselves, he continued, and is likely to spend more if their company is paying for room and board.
“The meeting industry is exceptionally important to Las Vegas,” Hill said.
Per the report, meeting volumes for internal team gatherings and product launches are expected to grow, however, planners are facing significant pressure from rising costs and macroeconomic uncertainty, with 71% anticipating an increase in the cost per attendee.
“To address these challenges, the industry is prioritizing the creation of more interactive and sustainable attendee experiences while increasingly leveraging AI to drive planning efficiencies and personalization,” Atkinson-Toal wrote.
“Immersive experiences are more critical than ever — attendees really want to see something different when they attend an event,” he added. “Attendee experience is more important than ever.”
Based on the results of the forecast, Atkinson-Toal said it’s crucial that the event industry and popular destinations like Las Vegas find opportunities to be creative and stand out.
“Think fresh, original ideas that inspire audiences; this is the essential ingredient for engaging events,” he wrote. “Our industry panel emphasizes the importance of incorporating creativity at every stage of the event life cycle.”
Las Vegas is the only city in the world that can treat 50,000 people all like a VIP, Hill said, with enough lodging and restaurants that visitors don’t have to reserve too far in advance to still have a good experience.
“That matters a lot to folks who put on the larger meetings,” Hill said. “But even with smaller meetings — those meetings are better attended when they’re in Las Vegas. And they’re better attended because there’s an energy in this city, there’s this broad spectrum of offerings.”
Event goers are looking for more ways to interact with and socialize with other attendees, Atkinson-Toal said, and to experience the destination in their free time during the event.
“A great event doesn’t mean an intensely packed agenda,” he said. “Event planners must think about how they can create opportunities for people to get together to solve problems, get to know each other, or just hang out and experience the local area.”
Regardless of a meeting’s size or whether it’s entertaining clients or rewarding employees, Hill said, its hosts typically want a variety of fun activities to enjoy in their off-hours. In Las Vegas, there’s sports, live entertainment and more.
“And it works in synergy with the meetings themselves,” Hill said. “A lot of meeting organizers tell us that the energy of the city kind of lends itself to innovation and creativity, and it sparks ideas and deals.”
Business travel is often the reason that somebody who may be skeptical of Las Vegas or unlikely to visit otherwise comes to the city for the first time, said Hill, who reflected on his own initial encounter with Las Vegas because of the massive World of Concrete expo.
“That’s what drew me to Las Vegas the first time,” Hill said. “And it’s an introduction that’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, no, I’d like to come back for a different reason than business.’ And it’s great marketing for us. Obviously everybody who comes gets exposed to the city, and that’s what we’re trying to do. Once people come, they tend to love it.”
The LVCVA’s “Not Invited” campaign, which launched in 2023, is targeted toward business travelers and set out to say, in Hill’s words, “if you’re going to be ordinary, don’t come here because we’re extraordinary.”
It’s the best business campaign Las Vegas has ever had, Hill said, with a combination of seriousness necessary for business and the one-of-a-kind character of Las Vegas.
The LVCVA’s sales team works in partnership with resorts and other venues to not only entice customers to the Las Vegas Convention Center but also the rest of the destination.
“We act as a dispatcher and tracker — a coordinator — to make sure that if someone has an interest in Las Vegas, that they get matched up correctly,” Hill said. “And so we broadcast all these leads to the resorts here, and if a company latches on some place, we try and track it all the way to the end to make sure that it worked out and they don’t get dropped.”
Atkinson-Toal recommended that the event industry take advantage of emerging technologies to measure and improve, noting that these technologies offer new ways to capture the value of meetings.
Event planners should think about how they can harness data insights to enhance engagement, improve program efficiency and help drive high-quality conversations with colleagues and leaders, he said.
Additionally, both budgets and costs are set to rise, Atkinson-Toal said, so event experts need to be a voice for meetings and events within their organization to secure the investment needed to deliver great experiences.
“Meeting professionals in North America lead the world when it comes to optimism — but they’re also clear-eyed about the challenges they face in the year ahead,” he wrote. “They understand they’re competing to win attendees’ precious time and attention. And they’re all too aware that fast rising costs could erode their ability to deliver the experiences that today’s audiences expect.”