The results of the July COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard survey of 476 planners and 212 suppliers reveal a sharper divide between the two in several key areas. For instance, only one-third of planners expect to see smaller local and regional events leading the recovery once the crisis is over (vs. 41 percent in the June survey), while 55 percent of suppliers (vs. 49 percent in June) see that as the most likely scenario. The fact that planners are seeing hybrid events as the way forward is evident in that 37 percent of them — compared to 30 percent in June — cite budgeting/pricing for a hybrid event as their biggest financial challenge. One thing both planners and suppliers share in common: a growing hesitation to travel for business events this year.
With the U.S. reckoning with a racial crisis in addition to a health and economic crisis, we asked planners if their speaker choices included diversity goals, and whether they track gender and ethnicity in their participant demographics. And while we hear anecdotally that digital events attract more diverse audiences than face-to-face events, do event organizers have the data to support that? Click on our latest survey results for the answers.
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