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Within the business events sector, strategic meetings management (SMM) is a practice that is increasingly being adopted around the world in order to produce cost savings and provide more value from an organization's meetings profile. Unstable economic factors have encouraged organizations to be more strategic and develop partnerships to deliver cost-effective meetings of a consistent quality. The premise of SMM is to reduce wasted meeting time and unnecessary costs by aligning meetings to the business goals of the organization. As a phenomenon developed in the US, SMM is now being adopted by organizations around the world. Despite its prevalence in industry, there is a paucity of academic research or literature on SMM. This article explores the concept of SMM and how organizations are implementing practices to achieve greater value from their meetings and events. Data collection involved two focus groups and interviews with 28 industry experts followed by a survey resulting in 1,302 responses. Analysis of this data revealed the current practices of practitioners, the key reasons for adopting SMM, and the barriers preventing adoption. The findings of this study suggest that organization size can be an influential factor in SMM implementation. Additionally, there appears to be a shift in focus from purely cost savings and transparency drivers to a consideration of the attendee experience
