Travel Built His Fortune. His policies Now Challenge the Industry.

For decades, travel, hospitality and real estate sat at the center of Donald Trump’s business empire —- hotels, golf resorts, casinos, licensing deals, even an airline. These sectors depend on open borders, economic confidence, global mobility and strong corporate travel, All of the same forces that power meetings and events. Yet today, planners across the meetings industry are signaling that policy shifts, geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty are beginning to complicate that very ecosystem. The latest Northstar Meetings Group/Cvent Meetings Industry PULSE Survey suggests the industry isn’t retreating, but it is clearly navigating a more fragile operating environment. (Full results available at this link).

The most compelling takeaway: meetings remain essential, even as execution becomes harder. Planner sentiment has softened, and a growing share of planners report policy-driven uncertainty, economic concerns and international travel friction. At the same time, booking timelines remain intact, sourcing pipelines are active, and the perceived value of face-to-face meetings remains near historic highs. In short, organizations are not pulling back. They’re adjusting.

Cost pressures continue to dominate the operating environment, with elevated F&B, AV and accommodation rates now viewed less as temporary spikes and more as structural realities. Planners are responding by moderating attendance assumptions, tightening budgets and leaning more heavily on trusted partners. Meanwhile, incremental slippage in RFP response times and softening supplier satisfaction scores suggest that strain is being felt across the ecosystem, not just by planners, but by suppliers as well.

At the same time, the strategic role of meetings continues to expand. Organizations increasingly view in-person events as critical drivers of alignment, culture, customer engagement and revenue—not just education and networking. Even as uncertainty rises, the business case for live events remains strong. If anything, the more complex the environment becomes, the more valuable face-to-face engagement appears to stakeholders.

This is precisely why the PULSE Survey matters. For six years now, thousands of planners from around the world have participated, creating one of the industry’s most consistent directional indicators. It’s during moments like these—when policy shifts, economic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions converge—that this data becomes most predictive and most useful. The message from this cycle is clear: the meetings industry is not slowing down, but the road ahead is definitely getting more complicated.