5 Content Trends Guiding How Meetings Are Planned, Attended, and Marketed

AI is everywhere.

Content that plays it safe is blending together.

The destinations that stand out are the ones willing to say something.

From alternative POVs to AI assistants to zero-click content, here’s what you need to know and how you can apply these content strategies to your destination’s meetings marketing.

Trend 1: Contrarian Content That Cuts Through the Noise

Want to stand out from AI? Sometimes you have to dare to be different.

Look at contrarian content. When everyone says the same thing, the bold voice becomes the trusted voice.

Examples for Destination Campaigns: Flip the Narrative to Reshape Perception

Examples for Destination Leadership

We’ve seen many destination leaders speak hard truths, reject industry clichés, and go against expectations. It’s refreshing

Trend 2: Zero-Click Content

Janet Mesh, Aimtal CEO & Founder, said, “It sounds backward. If you want your content to succeed, make sure people never click on it.”

Zero-click content is exactly what it sounds like: delivering value without requiring a click. Whether it’s LinkedIn carousels, Google previews, or in-feed content, the message hits before the site loads.

From Traffic to Trust

For DMOs, this is significant. If your story convinces someone in their scroll, they don’t need to visit your website to believe in your destination. To combat declining click-through rates, DMOs are proactively offering content in formats that deliver value on the spot.

Examples of this strategy in action:

This is a shift from measuring traffic to earning trust, so things to think about here are that you want to:

Zero-click content gives you reach, but not all audiences want the same message. That’s especially true in meetings and events, where two very different digital journeys are unfolding.

Enter our third trend.

Trend 3: Content Serving Two Digital Audiences

Planners and attendees are looking for different things.

Content for Each Audience

Planners may want B2B content or RFP-ready content, including venue capacity charts, maps showing proximity, accessibility, and ADA compliance, and more. Attendees are usually driven by real-time needs—where to go, what to eat, how to navigate. It’s short-term, emotional, and personal.

Your website and digital tools need to serve both the logic-driven decision maker and the experience-driven end user.

By providing a ready-made attendee website, this frees up planners from fielding destination questions and lets the DMO leverage its local expertise directly with attendees. Meanwhile, on the planner side, those same DMOs maintain robust meeting planner portals. The two-audience strategy ensures content is “right-sized”: planners receive detailed planning information, while attendees receive inspiring, easy-to-digest guides to help them enjoy the host city. You’re not just marketing to planners; you’re co-hosting with them.

Trend 4: AI Engagement Platforms

Love it or hate it, AI = assistance instantly.

For meeting planners, artificial intelligence is taking the grunt work off plates, answering questions and giving insights without adding headcount. For attendees, AI is becoming a local expert in their pocket, guiding, translating, and recommending in real time.

Event App Engagement

For attendees, let’s look at CventIQ, the new engagement platform.

How it works:

Now, Chatbots…

They’re helpful, but sometimes, when planners ask layered, logistical questions, a lot of chatbots hit a wall. Nuanced questions around safety, for example, get a default message that encourages users to head to the main site, but not to specific content. That’s an opportunity for your team to spot a gap in content.

Hitting a wall in the chatbot can also be your sales team’s entry point. We’ve seen how some destinations are training their AI tools to route with purpose—using the moment to highlight the value of their sales team. And when that handoff happens, your team needs to be ready to engage.

DMOs have a critical role to play. These tools pull from websites, PDFs, maps, and more, so if your content is structured, accurate, and up-to-date, your destination becomes part of the in-event experience.

Most chatbot platforms offer a backend where you can pull data. Over time, these chat logs become a goldmine for your marketing team. They show you exactly what planners and attendees are looking for and where your content might need a little backup. So keep an eye on the questions your bots can’t answer. That’s your next round of web content.

Because if you’re not feeding the system, someone else is.

But even the best AI needs the right kind of content to perform. And today, content isn’t just for your website; it’s for the AI assistant, the inbox, and the scroll.

Trend 5: The Anti-AI

AI doesn’t have peers. It doesn’t have nuance. It doesn’t have strong opinions. Your team’s input is more valuable than anything. DMOs are reminding the industry that while AI can crunch facts, it’s the local flavor, personal stories, and on-the-ground expertise that truly set a destination apart.

Intellectual Capital Is a Good Example of Setting a Destination Apart

Our clients like Atlanta, Park City, Pasadena, and Phoenix—destinations traditionally known for certain mainstays—are actively reshaping content to highlight their destination’s local intellectual capital in fields like medicine, tech, sustainability, and more.

For example, Phoenix showcases its downtown Bioscience core (a 30-acre life sciences innovation district) as a unique asset for medical meetings. By connecting planners with local experts and showcasing venues like labs and university facilities, the DMO provides insights that an AI summary might miss.

This approach leverages local knowledge networks to add rich context to meetings, proving that insider knowledge and local connections are invaluable for creating memorable, place-based meeting content.

Which Trends Do You Prioritize First?

Start by auditing your existing strengths:

The meetings landscape is shifting quickly. Let’s build content that works across scrolls, searches, and sales conversations. Reach out today.