There is a rising societal challenge that meeting planners need to be aware of: the loneliness epidemic. Driven by isolating remote-work environments, younger generations are craving authentic human interaction. In this issue of Connecting the Dots, ALHI President and CEO Michael Dominguez says this challenge presents an opportunity for the meeting and event industry. By prioritizing emotional engagement and intentional connection, meetings and events can serve as the ultimate remedy, proving that travel and entertainment remain a vital pillar for mental health and wellness.
Michael Dominguez: What I wanted to talk about today is something that's an outlier, but we're starting to see its impact in behaviors of the overall consumer. It's actually a negative data point that's creating a positive output, and I think is very encouraging for the meetings and events industry as we can become a solution provider to this problem. We’ve become even more needed because of this problem, and the problem is very simply, we have a loneliness epidemic in our society today.
In the United States, the amount of hours that those that are 34 and younger are spending alone has never been higher, and has increased by 1.5 hours since 2018, as far as the number of hours they can spend alone in any given day. That has actually now hit a peak of six hours a day that some of our population, almost 20% of the population, is experiencing.
What's driving that? Part of it is remote work. Being at home, you're isolated, you're never around other human beings. That can drive part of this. Part of it is just societal norms. Part of it could be how we feel. What we have found, and what we do know in all research, as human beings, we were not meant to be alone. As human beings, we do not thrive in those environments.
So why are we seeing outcomes? Why is that good for us in the meetings and events industry? You know what we do? We bring people together. We bring people together for the human connection and I think we need to really focus on the engagement and the emotion that we can create when we have people together.
What I've talked to planners about is we always have to remember not what we're doing at a meeting, but why are we meeting. It's about the human engagement and how do we make that intentional so that people are connecting and feeling part of it.
The reason we're seeing it in numbers in the general population: there is an explosion of almost a 50 percent increase since 2019 of audiences and spectator sports and live entertainment. These are people going to concerts. These are people going to sports events. You know what's different? No matter how alone you feel, when you're at a concert, you don't feel alone. You're celebrating the music. You're celebrating the artists. You're singing with other people.
We're starting to see this play out in society where people are traveling. Great for the industry because travel has actually been ticked as the big box for mental health and wellness. You want to feel better? Go travel. You want to feel better? Be around people. That is a really, really great trend line for the meetings and events industry.
So, I implore you to always think about, yes, this is what I'm doing. Why am I doing it? Remember the human connection. How do you move people emotionally at those meetings in addition to moving them mentally? I hope this will help you in your planning in the future. A little bit of something that maybe is off the radar because it is becoming more prevalent and we're starting to see more research about it. Thank you for joining us.
Read more Connecting the Dots with Michael Dominguez.