Pharma’s engagement problem: Are we expecting too much from individual events?

Published 11 September 2026

Author(s): Muriel Poulenc

Across its global estate, Radisson Hotel Group hosts and helps plan more than 150,000 meetings each year from the venue perspective. This brings our teams into close collaboration with the planners, sponsors, and budget holders who shape the objectives, content, and investment behind them. Alongside this day-to-day experience, industry engagement activities provide direct insights from those at the heart of healthcare meeting planning. Together, these perspectives help us understand how expectations are changing – and what this means for the future of pharmaceutical meetings.

Healthcare professionals have never had more ways to access information. Scientific content is now available through congresses, journals, webinars, podcasts, online communities and, increasingly, AI-powered tools. At the same time, healthcare professionals are facing growing time pressures, increasing regulatory requirements, and heavier clinical workloads. For pharmaceutical companies, this creates a new engagement challenge.