The Contract Clause Planners Forget Until a Hotel Closes

Meeting planners have a number of items on their priority lists as an event date approaches, but most aren’t spending much time fretting about whether the venue will actually be open. The January closure of The Plaza Hotel in New York, however, is a reminder of the need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario of a shuttered venue.

Andrea Doyle digs into the implications of the closure for the bigger picture and spells out what every planner should be inserting in their contract language to protect themselves, including a look at the need for timely disclosures of planned renovations. Head below for the full story, along with a venue that’s already closed — and that’s the appeal: empty storefronts can be far hipper than hotel ballrooms. Plus, we have five proactive moves to make for your meetings in 2027 and the news of the Naboo-Proven acquisition. — David McMillin

How are your peers thinking about risk in the destination selection process? What’s next for entry policies and fees? Which regions are making the biggest infrastructure bets for the future? Find out in a new report from Skift Meetings designed to help you get a sense of the future of the global meetings landscape.

This report was sponsored by Destination Toronto and Ottawa Tourism.

Hyatt + Skift Meetings

How will the industry manage to attract and keep the best employees with low starting pay, long hours and demanding clients? Some organizations are embracing four-day work weeks and sabbaticals, while others are opting for contractors and freelancers.

Learn how with For Real Events, the team behind Shoptalk’s hosted buyer programs, and Brella, the platform behind more than 3.6 million meetings. The free on-demand webinar includes a Managed Meetings demo.

Your Registration Site Runs on Code You’ve Never Thought About

You probably don’t know much about PHP. I had never heard of the acronym until last week. It turns out those three letters are pretty important: PHP is the programming language that powers an estimated 70% of the world’s websites. The developers behind it warned of critical vulnerabilities that could let an attacker take over a web server without a password. If your DMO partners were slow getting back to you with a response for your RFP, this might be why. Granicus Destinations, which runs software for more than 500 North American DMOs, pulled two PHP-based add-ons offline as a precaution, including a tool that lets visitors book hotels directly from a DMO’s website. Meanwhile, Destinations International’s VP of IT said he spent an afternoon emailing vendors to make sure they were patching, and he suggested other DMOs do the same.

Now think about your own tech stack. You didn’t build your registration platform or your housing portal, and you probably have no idea what they run on. That’s normal. Most hotels and DMOs don’t know either, which is why the advice they got was simple: call your vendors. You should, too. Ask what each platform is built on, whether it was exposed, and how fast they patch when something like this hits. Then plan for the bad day. If registration goes dark the week of your early-bird deadline, do you have a backup form? An email to attendees ready to go? A deadline extension already approved? Downtime is the obvious risk, but it isn’t the only one. Granicus GM Adam Boscoe warned that a compromised site can be used to reach the people who trust it. For you, those people are your attendees, and they’re used to clicking whatever your event sends them.

A rundown of when the most important programs are happening around the world next year.