This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.
Name: Andrea Crawley
Company Name: Destinations International
Job Title: Meetings & Events Manager
Years of Experience: 9
How do you think you are positioned, after months of persevering with the pandemic, to take advantage of our new and disrupted meetings/events landscape?
During the pandemic, I was able to take time to enhance my education on virtual meetings and learn how we should be moving forward once in-person meetings start again. After obtaining my Digital Event Strategist (DES) designation and becoming a Pandemic Compliance Advisor, I feel more prepared on how to transition into the new normal of our industry.
As our community moves forward with planning in person meetings, what new technologies or processes are you implementing that you may have not looked at before?
Reducing touch points will be a major focus moving forward with planning in person meetings. I was able to introduce QR codes when marketing onsite at conferences and events. Also, providing duty of care has been communicated upfront with what people should expect will happen and how we’re implementing safety measures before arriving onsite.
As we see virtual meetings transition back to face to face, hybrid meetings are beginning to be the vehicle to return to normalcy. What are your thoughts on hybrid meetings versus traditional fully in person meetings?
I believe hybrid meetings are here to stay. Incorporating hybrid elements within in person conferences and meetings (whether full live broadcasting or on-demand content) provides more access and outreach to attendees. Although typically more costly and require more personnel, hybrid options benefit attendees because they can attend events for a specific session or day, and/or use the on-demand content at a more convenient time if they are located in a different time zone.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
The biggest value of our attendees is being face to face. Although we were able to adjust in the virtual space to provide networking capabilities, there’s nothing like in person engagement. Face-to-face is more personable and has less distractions; whereas, people may tend to multi task or refrain from networking on line because it’s not in person.
As the pandemic fades away and we return to face-to-face events what do you hope changes, either for planners or hoteliers, in the traditional RFP and proposal process as a result of all of the learnings from the last 20+ months?
I hope moving forward, planners and hoteliers look at the RFP and proposal process as more of a collaboration effort. Although we’re at opposite ends of the hospitality spectrum, we both want to achieve the same goal: a successful and memorable experience for our guests and attendees.
This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.