With more and more planners looking at a hybrid model for their meetings, Louisville Tourism and its industry partners showcased their ability to host such an event while also highlighting the work they’ve done as a city to welcome guests back safely. Held on Oct.

With the launch of its pre-travel testing program on Oct. 15, the State of Hawaii officially began welcoming visitors back to the islands. According to John Reyes, senior vice president and chief meetings, conventions and incentives (MCI) sales officer for Meet Hawaii, the reopening is positive news for groups looking to book meetings and events — even if, at the moment, allowable gatherings are still small.

On Oct. 21, Miami Beach Convention Center hosted The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau Annual Meeting, the first event to take place at the venue since it reopened in October after closing due to the pandemic in April. 

Hyatt Regency Seattle, which debuted in December 2018 and is currently the largest hotel in the Pacific Northwest, reopened to the public on Oct. 1 for the first time since closing its doors in March when the pandemic began.

With ski season fast approaching, Big Sky Resort in Montana is thinking outside the — ahem, gondola — to reimagine how guests will be able to attend meetings and conferences at ski resorts.  Thanks to a new program called Hybrid Mountain Meetings, conference organizers will be able to plan virtual events, presentations and speakers broadcasted from within the resort at Yellowstone Conference Center, while attend

While the California Department of Public Health’s latest guidelines continue to prohibit in-person gatherings, San Diego meeting venues will be ready the moment that changes.

The home of the Packers will also be home to an expansive new event venue by January 2021. Resch Expo, a 125,000-square-foot, column-free exposition center, is located in Green Bay, Wisconsin, adjacent Lambeau Field in the city’s entertainment district. Together with the existing Resch Center — which opened in 2002 and hosts events from concerts to trade shows — it will make up the new Resch Complex.

In a rather bold move amidst a tumultuous year for the tourism industry, Visit Spokane has unveiled a restructuring of its business model that will lead to a short-term reduction in revenue but ultimately open up other avenues of funding and allow the organization to live more fully into its mission of marketing the whole region. 

Opening a new convention hotel in the middle of a pandemic may sound preposterous to some. Yet things went on as planned in Rockford, Illinois, which opened the brand-new Embassy Suites by Hilton Rockford Riverfront in early July.

As part of Phase 4 of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s New York Forward plan, meeting venues in New York City are now able to host in-person gatherings of up to 50 people at under 33 percent of the venue’s capacity. Planners can add to these numbers by bringing additional attendees in virtually; that’s why a number of New York venues are embracing the hybrid meetings concept.