By Padraic Gilligan, Co-founder, SoolNua Consulting: In the last six years alone we’ve had Covid, Ukraine, Israel, tariffs, Venezuela, Greenland and now Iran. Layer onto that the existential debates around climate and AI and you begin to understand why the question keeps surfacing: should we be worried for our industry? The short answer is yes…
Soolnua co-founder Padraic Gilligan demonstrates how to effectively counter negative press stories by unapologetically hammering home economic multiplier facts and figures, and illuminating the bigger picture behind the cost and style of doing business in the business events or tourism sectors. From Padraicino…
Soolnua co-founder and events industry commentator Padraic Gilligan sounds a warning note on the optimism pervading many recent industry surveys and reports, especially regarding the underlying health of the US economy: At this stage, most of the usual trend and forecast reports for the business events industry have landed. Reading through them, you can’t help…
Padraic Gilligan considers the implications of the intangibility of key assets that make our industry. When business models rely on events which exist briefly, with no guarantees of future revenue, and on the intellectual and experiential capital of staff who could leave tomorrow, how can accountants and venture capitalists place a value on such businesses?
By Pádraic Gilligan, Research & Consultancy, SITE and Co–founder, SoolNua: We’ve reached the midpoint of the year and one thing is clear: we’re no clearer as to what lies ahead for our world at large, the world of business, our industry, or our sector. Our innate resilience drives us onwards, but it’s one cautious step…
by Pádraic Gilligan, co-founder, SoolNua: As 2025 unfolds, it’s increasingly difficult to pin down exactly how incentive travel professionals feel about the short- to medium-term outlook for our industry. One thing is clear: sentiment has shifted since 2024. The Incentive Travel Index, released in November 2024, painted a nuanced picture—continued growth in the use and…
By Pádraic Gilligan: Recent research from McKinsey into the way we travel now is crammed with exciting, actionable insights for organisers of incentive travel programs. While the McKinsey research focuses on leisure, the trends here tend to replicate themselves in incentive travel as, after all, the travel reward is specifically designed to motivate and reward…
By Pádraic Gilligan: Recently I posted on sustainability and incentive travel concluding that current definitions / understandings of each rendered them as irreconcilable opposites – sustainability was “limiting”, requiring restraint, reduced consumption, thoughtful, conscientious behaviour while a travel reward was sans frontiers and sans souci, suggesting freedom, extravagance, conspicuous consumption.
By Pádraic Gilligan: Last May the Events Industry Council published the latest iteration of its Global Economic Significance of Business Events and valued business events’ contribution to global GDP at USD$1.6 trillion. This figure, in fact, would rank business events as the 13th largest economic stream globally. The EIC study, conducted in partnership with Oxford…
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