Since January 2025, President Trump’s second term in office has had a significant impact on the meetings and events industry.
The Department of Government Efficiency terminated hundreds of contracts and grants for government agencies and their activities. Cuts to medical and scientific funding also reduced meetings, resulting in lost or postponed business for hotels and event planners.
Then, on April 2, Trump made his famous ‘Liberation Day’ announcement of sweeping tariffs on imports. Concerns over steep rises in the cost of doing business led some multinationals to introduce immediate travel bans for their employees. The travel bans had far-reaching consequences.
Across the Atlantic, Tori Ackling is the group commercial director of Legacy Hotels and Resorts, a UK operator and developer with 23 mostly branded (Marriott, Accor, Hilton) hotels.
The two weeks following ‘Liberation Day’ were a “scary time,” she remembered. “We thought we were going to lose everything. In the end, we had two companies that gave tariffs as a reason for cancellation or postponement. At the time we did think: ‘Is this the way it’s going to be? Is this the knock-on effect?’”
Cancellations
A longstanding corporate client – a British car manufacturer – cancelled a three-day conference worth £150,000 booked for October 2025.
During Covid, Legacy Hotels and Resorts waived all cancellation charges, but in this case, the hotel stuck to its T&Cs and the car manufacturer agreed to pay a charge of £10,000. The event is expected to be rescheduled for Q2 2026.
Another client of Legacy Hotels and Resorts cited tariffs as the reason for cancelling an event worth £30,000 at its Southampton hotel.
These cancellations are symptomatic of widespread uncertainty and a volatile situation for event agencies and hotels.
Tour operators are also cancelling up to 28 days before arrival so as not to incur a cancellation fee.
“People want so much flexibility,” said Ackling. “We can’t say no because the hotel down the road will say yes.”
Canada Gains
Global data from Groups360, a provider of hotel booking and management solutions for group travel and the meetings and events market, highlights several emerging trends.
While hotels are receiving more RFPs overall compared to last year, the average number of rooms requested per RFP has decreased. One notable outlier is Canada, which is seeing significant growth in demand.
Kristi White, VP of data analytics and reporting at Groups360, explained: “We’re seeing a growing interest in Canada as a destination for events among North American organizations. At the same time, Canadian planners are showing a strong preference for hosting events domestically.”
Globally, group revenue is up 8.5 percent in primary cities, 18.4 in secondary cities and down -0.5 percent in tertiary cities. Again, Canada is the standout performer with extraordinary revenue growth in its primary cities.
Looking at U.S. cancellations, the highest volume are occurring for events in San Diego, Chicago, St Louis, Tampa/St. Petersburg and Vancouver. The cities with the lowest volume of cancellations are Boston, New York City, Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Nashville.
White commented: “The key takeaway is that while we are seeing RFP volume grow, they are smaller than last year, thus leading to lower revenues. We need to be careful not to exacerbate the situation with declining ADRs.”
Streamline Processes
It is not easy for hotel teams to handle hundreds of RFPs, but in the current climate, Ackling said she goes through everything that comes in.
“You never know. That one golden nugget might be in there. In a monthly report we drill down on what’s coming in, from which agencies, lead times, and we really focus on response times. If we know we can’t reply in time, we pick up the phone and say we need more time to get the information together.”
Tech tools are available to help hotel sales teams streamline RFP processing. With Groups360, for example, hotels can filter incoming RFPs and rank them according to their potential value. Ackling and her team, however, do this work manually and, in her experience, event planners and agencies have not fully embraced technology either.
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