In the seemingly glacial crawl marking the return to normalcy across various corners of the business world…
…there may be green shoots budding, or at least on the horizon, for the business event space. On the other hand, any real rebound would take a while amid the current new coronavirus surge.
News, of course, came this week that a pair of vaccines may be coming soon, which, depending on availability, may portend a return to normal life, which in turn implies a return to larger-scale gatherings. Not just parties and social events, but trade shows and conventions where companies across any number of verticals congregate to network, announce new product offerings and even size up the competition.
The business events industry is a sizable one, estimated at $1.5 trillion, with direct spending in local economies at about $1 trillion. As the pandemic hit, marquee events like Mobile World Congress were canceled, and those cancellations led to direct losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In a nod toward side effects: Business travel is off by as much as 85 percent, year on year, as noted by airline executives.
UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry, estimated earlier this year that globally, revenues for the first half of 2020 represented a third of the revenues produced for the same period last year.
“Looking at 2020 as a whole, it is currently expected that the revenues will represent only 39 percent of those of 2019,” said the association.
As the virus became a part of everyday life and reopenings have dotted various countries and regions, there has been a bit of a renaissance – at least ahead of the new waves of infections – in Europe, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. New models are emerging, which combine limited physical presence and online gatherings. The impact has been seismic in other ways, as the Journal noted that hotels in Germany saw revenue declines of more than 50 percent.
As for the green shoots: An auto trade show in China marked the first major trade show to take place in the wake of the pandemic – across any industry. Elsewhere, CES, via the Consumer Technology Association, will take place next year, but will be all-digital. IBTM Asia Pacific, a meeting for the meetings and events industry, is scheduled to be hosted on-site in Singapore in June.
Recent lockdowns, though, stagger the industry – now and moving forward. Sweden has restricted gatherings of more than eight people. Countries like Austria are scheduling multi-week lockdowns. Here in the States, we are seeing various state- or city-wide initiatives taking shape that also would restrict face-to-face meetings.
The hope is there, of course, that there will be a way back. In a survey of event marketers, 78 percent said they plan to attend as many or more live events when the threat of COVID-19 passes and it is safe to do so.
PYMNTS’ own study of a national sample of 2,800 U.S. consumers conducted on Nov. 12 showed that only 6.4 percent of respondents who attended business conferences pre-pandemic expressed an interest in attending in-person business conferences as they once did even after getting a vaccine –slightly more at 10 percent for those earning $100,000 or more. This isn’t to say that there won’t be a yearning for in-person networking again … but just like everything else that has moved digital-first, those experiences must be different to convince them – and those who approve event and conference budgets – that the trip is worth the spend and their time.
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