A Review of Research in Meetings Management: Some Issues and Challenges

The aim of the paper is to provide a clear overview of existing research in the field of the meetings industry in international space and to open an academic discussion on the issues of this field in Slovenia. Through the method of literature analysis, we determine the position of the meetings industry in relation to business tourism and leisure tourism, explaining the most frequent definitions of meetings and pointing to the fragmentariness of the meetings industry, recognising it as a special research challenge. The existing research on the meetings industry is focused on five basic areas (economic impact of meetings, convention site-selection process, destination marketing, convention and visitors bureau (CVB) operations, and advances in technology). We also acknowledge the emergence of a completely new question of sustainability of meetings, or the “greening” of meetings. Due to lack of research on the meetings industry in Slovenia, researchers face some issues and challenges, and the increasing importance of the activities in the tourism sector creates a gap in research that needs to be filled, starting with the need to consider the depth and breadth of research. Due to the fragmentation of the meetings industry, we first need to establish appropriate terminology and conduct an in-depth analysis of the conditions in the area of the supply and demand of meetings facilities, perform an economic evaluation of the possible impacts of meetings and analyse the decision-making factors that shape the processes of selecting convention sites. Researchers in Slovenia also need to tackle new questions such as the greening of meetings. We have no doubt that the tradition of the meetings industry in Slovenia makes it necessary for us to encourage its development with research and ensure the continuing expansion of knowledge.