From the founder Note 34 · 4 min read · By Jonathan Riccobono
What I saw at IMEX America 2026: retreats are turning inward
Our founder spent four days on the floor in Las Vegas. The experiences were loud. The ones that will matter are quieter.
Last week our founder, Jonathan Riccobono, spent four days at IMEX America in Las Vegas, one of the biggest meetings and events shows in North America. It ran October 12 to 15, with MPI’s Smart Monday education day opening it and three days on the show floor at Mandalay Bay. He went to see where retreats are heading. The answer was hard to miss.
Wellness and spirit, front and center
Walk the floor and you saw it everywhere: wellness and spiritual retreats were at the front of almost everything. Destinations, venues and planners were all leading with stillness, nature, breath and meaning. There were so many activations built around it that the message was clear. This is where retreats are going.
What stood out
Jonathan’s favorite hour was the keynote from Caitlin Krause, the founder of MindWise, who teaches digital wellbeing at Stanford and the University of Oregon and wrote Digital Wellbeing. Her talk on Smart Monday, “Empowered Connection in a Digitally Layered Landscape,” was about meeting technology with intention, and about awe and wonder as the things that open people up to each other.
It is the same idea we build retreats on: attention is the scarce thing, and connection is what you do with it.
Booth after booth was designed as an experience: color, sound, scent, ritual, photo moments. Some were brilliant. Taken together, they showed an industry that knows people want to feel something when they gather.
Wellness was no longer the spa add-on at the end of the agenda. It was the headline. Retreats built around reflection, nature and the inner life were being pitched as the main event.
Here is what was missing. Many of the experiences sounded wonderful and looked even better. But very few answered what the team would do differently on Monday.
The part that sounded like fluff
A lot of destination management companies were selling experiences. Sunset this, curated that, immersive everything. It sounded really good, and it was mostly nothing. No goal behind it, no thread back to the business, nothing that helps a team move forward. An experience without an outcome is a nice afternoon. That is not what a company is paying for.
Fluff or forward? Tap a card to flip it
What this means if you are planning a retreat
Expect your inbox to fill with beautiful experience menus in 2027. Use them. Just ask harder questions before you book.
Before you book an experience, ask
- What is this retreat for, in one sentence?
- Which part of the agenda does this experience serve?
- What should people feel, and then what should they decide?
- How will we carry it back to the office?
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