1) Business Travel… Quo vadis?

The Focus of Eureka MICE International

The first focus is dedicated to the evolutions of Business Travel and the implications for other segments of the Meeting Industry.

The interviews we are conducting on the topic with buyers from various countries reveal very different opinions, but their responses show an almost total convergence on the following analysis.

During the lockdown, online meetings were the only possible way for companies, managers, and professionals to interact, many of whom discovered the great advantages in managing time and resources.

Increasingly, companies and professionals, even after the lockdown, are organizing themselves for Smart Working—a mode that is certainly not new in the work landscape—clearly indicating that they have fully assimilated the possibilities of remote interaction thanks to various software like Skype, Zoom, Slack, etc.

At the same time, our interviews are highlighting how this mode is not suitable for those meetings where presence and physicality are decisive and therefore indispensable.

This is the case for initial meetings aimed at starting a collaboration, promoting oneself, selling, or during the initial phase of a negotiation.

For all subsequent phases, however, once a "rapport" has been established between the parties, meetings and interactions can comfortably take place virtually.

The implications for the Business Travel Industry of this new working dimension, in which many companies will reduce their offices and fewer people will commute to work or meet in person, are considerable.

In addition to airlines and business hotels being heavily penalized, the economy of both large and small centers tied to this business will also suffer significantly because far fewer people will travel, stay in hotels, go to restaurants, bars, etc.

Furthermore, for a long time, company events, already paralyzed by the devastating effects of the pandemic, will also be absent.

However, as a counterbalance, in the medium to long term, this trend will trigger a substantial increase in structured corporate events such as conventions, product launches, team building, incentives, etc.

The shift to Smart Working will indeed make it necessary over time to create many more moments of meeting and gathering to stimulate the involvement and motivation of collaborators.

In the short to medium term, it will be the associational and congress events that ensure a solid recovery, thanks to the certainty of their scheduling, which is expected to increase internationally for at least the next five years.

Additionally, in the immediate term, there are events that need to be rescheduled that were postponed during the lockdown.