Crises have historically driven lasting change. We can see COVID-19 has created a digital transformation on steroids and that the engagement model of associations is changing. Event professionals seem to agree that the future is a community with in-person, virtual, and hybrid opportunities to meet and I personally very much believe in the opportunity of online community platforms for associations to interact in-between live events and increase their impact as change agents. Still, it is clear that associations are “Zoomed out” and cannot wait for face-to-face meetings to make their big return. There has been a lot of talk about the digital transformation, but has COVID also affected the destination selection- and bidding process of in-person association meetings?

In 2003, I wrote my thesis called “Who and what are influencing the decision-making process in the international association meetings market?”. Interviewing ICCA member suppliers and associations, I presented two basic types of decision-making processes: In the traditional bidding process, a local counterpart or ambassador of the international association is the initiator on the market. A local organising committee, in which the local member, venue and facility suppliers and a convention & visitors bureau are represented, is set up to prepare a bid proposal and the decision-makers make a decision based on the bids presented to them. In the central decision-making process local members are not involved in the decision-making process. In this process the initiator in the market is a Central Key Contact, who produces a shortlist of destinations and venues that are most likely to host the conference, and the decision-makers make a decision based on the options recommended to them.

These models were included in ICCA’s guide “International association meetings: Bidding and decision-making”.

Rotation area as a basis for bidding

For almost 60 years, the international association meetings market was built on these decision-making processes and on the principle that association meetings take place regularly and have a structured rotation pattern, as this is usually prescribed in an international association’s by-laws.

Meeting destinations and suppliers were targeting high-potential associations based on their meeting’s rotation area and where they have been in the past 10-15 years. If their rotation area is Europe and they have not been in Brussels for 15 years they have high potential of coming to Brussels and Brussels should place a bid - living up to all the other event criteria of course.

COVID has changed this, at least for now. But possibly for good.

Future of events: Hybrid, smaller and local events

EventMB’s recent The Future of the Event Industry report concludes that 70% of planners will organize hybrid events“...- and not because anyone is particularly looking forward to it, but out of necessity. Virtual will be a necessary part of the recovery as many attendees will not be able or willing to attend in person, especially if they have to travel. The result is going to be smaller and local events, and a reliance on virtual event components to engage and reach a much wider audience.”

These pandemic-related reasons have changed the selection and decision-making process at least for the short term.

ICCA Research reported in December that they did find some changes in Bid Manuals related to COVID-19 like the inclusion of protocols and safety measures, virtual site visits and including virtual participation options and contingency plans in bids, but that they did not find big permanent changes yet.

The uncertain future is causing associations to organise hybrid events to leave them flexible in offering both the in-person and virtual options to their attendees. But the changing engagement model of associations, environmental pressures, and expectations of new generations could have changed the need to always fly the globe and meet face-to-face for good.

Move from traditional to central decision-making and new parameters

The pandemic seems to have caused a shift from the traditional bidding process towards the central decision-making process.

Anecdotal feedback from associations shows that uncertainty about travel and safety restrictions is making local ambassadors less eager to get involved in bids, resulting in central decision-makers not just putting out their RFP but pro-actively inviting local hosts and looking at the hybrid options offered by destinations. By doing this they are breaking the traditional rotation area pattern.

Apart from COVID, another big shift and important new parameter in recent years is destinations using their “intellectual capital” and aligning their local knowledge clusters with the association meetings they are targeting. By doing so, they aim to partner with the association to advance knowledge together and leave a local legacy, aiming to contribute to their local knowledge economy.

All this means that destinations are no longer primarily selected based on rotation pattern and where they have been in the past, but based on new parameters as key selection criteria:

• Hybrid and virtual meeting support
• Safety
• Knowledge clusters

Until now, there was no overview available for associations to find destinations based on these new criteria. Probably because there was no need for them in the traditional bidding process. With this shift towards the central decision-making process, there is a need for this overview for associations to make a pre-selection of potential meeting destinations.

Conferli’s destination matching tool for association meetings

Conferli’s new destination, venue matching and RFP tool for association meetings - which launched at a very unfortunate time at the start of the pandemic last year - has recently added these new selection criteria to their existing standard event criteria like delegate numbers, number of breakout rooms, hotel rooms, exhibition space needed, distance from the airport and price of a dinner and a beer.

You can select if your association meeting is an in-person or hybrid event and it let’s you select hybrid event options, based on the interaction level with the virtual audience:

• Broadcasting only
• Medium interaction (through Digital Event Software)
• Full interaction (through an Event Platform)

You can select to only include cities with the World Travel & Tourism Council’s ‘Safe Travels’ Stamp, created by WTTC Members, governments, health experts, and other industry associations to achieve effective recovery protocols by developing meaningful action plans that optimise sector-wide recovery efforts.

On top of this the city pages include direct links to the latest local health regulations:

The tool allows you to compare destination and benchmark on key parameters:

Try it for free and upload your RFP and let Conferli match your event with the right destination.

New promotion channel for destinations

The future still looks uncertain - EventMBs survey shows expectations are ranging from Q3 or Q4 2021 to 2022 -, but it looks like in-person events are returning relatively soon. This is reflected in Conferli’s subscription list of over 1100 associations, of which 300 associations showing active interest or using the tool already to find their next in-person or hybrid event destination.

As the destination selection process is changing, smart cities are joining the platform to promote their virtual and hybrid event offering and to promote themselves as safe destinations, allowing for a quicker restart of face-to-face events, which we are all eagerly awaiting!

What does the future look like post-Coronavirus?

We are living in a time of disruption and the future is unknown and potentially way more complex than any current initial analysis suggests. The current turbo-charged digital transformation caused by COVID in combination with pre-Corona trends like “flight shaming” and digital expectations of new generations could have changed the engagement model of associations for good.

And, disruption cuts both ways: How does this impact destination marketing strategies? What happens if destinations approach association meetings as an economic development strategy, and proactively focus on specific kinds of meetings they want to host, when, how, and for what purpose?

Associations that genuinely partner with destinations, rather than only transact with them for their meeting needs, could discover all kinds of new opportunities.

Let us know: Has your selection/bidding process changed?

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Mathijs Vleeming