During the pandemic, the majority of meetings and conferences have been virtual or hybrid – combining some level of in-person meeting with non-face-to-face sessions.
This shift to virtual has helped to accelerate the digital transformation in the MICE industry (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) as venues and facilities look at how they can adjust to changes in conference trends.
The Korean Culture and Tourism Institute conducted a survey of government, academic and industry experts (132 respondents) to learn their views on the move to virtual events. The view that online will replace in-person had a rating of 3.70 points on a 5-point scale measurement where 1 is “will not be replaced” and 5 is “will be almost entirely replaced”. The question put to respondents was: To what extent do you expect the online form to replace the existing face-to-face and offline form when holding international conferences in the future? Responses were as follows:
1 : (not much will be replaced): 0.8
2 : 12.9
3 : 4.4
4 : 59.8
5 : (the majority will be replaced): 12.1
The overall view is that nearly 72% of live international conferences in South Korea will be replaced by virtual events.
Meanwhile, a similar survey from the China Convention and Economic Research Committee (253 respondents) found that 41% of organizations believe that, regardless of the type of meeting, the digital transformation is now the trend, and 84% say that awareness of the importance of digital transformation is much more important than before the pandemic.
Meeting technologies used in the MICE industry are classified into 21 categories, including 5 base technologies used in combination with other technologies and 16 event-specific technologies used for international events in South Korea.
Base technologies are those that are integral for digital meetings including: artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, big data and wearable technology. They are often used in combination with other technologies, such as AI-based chatbots, guide robots, wearable beacons, cloud-based event management software, IoT-based smart displays, big data-based event management software for participant analysis.
The 16 event-specific categories include AR/VR, holograms, live streaming, radiofrequency identification (RFID), social media, location-based services/GPS, beacon technologies, mobile apps, event management system software, drones, general chatbots, guiding robots, projection mapping, facial recognition software, smart display, and near-field communication.
In China, digital technologies considered to be integral to the virtual or hybrid meeting space include: Precise search, intelligent recommendations software, live streaming, content management, virtual exhibition capabilities, reservation consultation, customer profiling, instant communication, intent to order solutions, electronic business cards and customer service tools.
In the coming 12 to 18 months, it will be worth charting how these trends impact the industry as well as delegate expectations.
Hwajeong Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in tourism and hotel management from Youngsan University. She lives in Grindelwald, Switzerland, where she runs a Swiss Mountain lodge. She has a master’s in culture and communication from University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Know someone who would find this interesting? Share this article with them!
Images courtesy of KME 2020 and The Korean Culture and Tourism Institute
There will always be a time and place for live meetings, but as we have found, both from personal experience and working with clients, flexibility, responsiveness, and clarity around meetings strategy means that blended solutions can help us deal with the ongoing global and local challenges we face.
Read More
According to data from events agency Freeman, event attendance is sitting this year ataround 65% compared with 2019 numbers. The fact is that, just as the world is starting to pay attention to the climate emergency, on the meetings side, we all need to pay attention to what might be dubbed “the events emergency”, because although things seem the same, sometimes it feels like the sky keeps changing colour.
Read More
We’re starting to see more organisations think about a blend of events and meetings. We’re working with an organisation on a series from Ireland where there will beat least one hub of people meeting face-to-face, with the sessions streamed out to people who will watch virtually. After two years of working from home and attending events virtually, there is a comfort level with connecting via Zoom or other platforms. People have established a pattern behaviour, which is to join meetings online from the comfort of their home – albeit with the variability of the quality of delivery from poorly run sessions to positive, engaging meetings that encourage people to join future sessions.
Read More
Enhancing the delegate journey in a hybrid event: 1. Adapt your strategies: improve engagement through translation. 2. Question what’s right: What’s the profile of these delegates from different parts of the world?, Why would they come to a live event?, What might stop them from coming? What can we do to still reach out and engage them more effectively, make it meaningful and impactful for them, and potentially bring in current and future membership fees?
Read More
Whether through networking or poster sessions, the point is to create ways in which the audience can learn from the experts, engage with key opinion leaders and gain access to respected leaders they wouldn’t normally have a chance to speak with. How that is branded – networking, engaging conversations – or the methods used are less important than ensuring learning is more interactive.
Read More
Virtual conferences reduce financial and travel barriers that are inherent to in-person conferences, opening up knowledge-sharing to participants that don’t have the resources to travel to major conferences. However, survey results found many respondents found virtual networking to be contrived and inauthentic. One way this can and has been addressed is through local networking sites or hubs.
Read More