Malin Andersson
Senior lecturer
The post-pandemic values of meetings: : innovation and resilience in the meetings industry
Mötens postpandemiska värden : innovation och resiliens i mötesindustrin
Author
Summary, in English
Methods
This study departs from a social science interdisciplinary outlook on the meetings industry with theories from a critical service marketing perspective. In order to explore trends in the supply and to understand the meetings industry value offerings in the post covid time, I focus on the marketing of meetings products across the international arena. Trends in the supply of meeting products is identified in a) the offerings that such actors communicate in their marketing towards potential customers and b) in industry media. The object of study is therefore the meetings industry external strategic communication in the post pandemic period. The empirical material was collected a few months after authorities of the nordic countries had classified the pandemic to be over. Beside two semi-structured qualitative interviews with meetings professionals, the selection of cases are firms who offer meetings on a commercial basis, and belong to the corporate meetings segment. A criteria is that they belong to a chapter in the global Meetings Professional International association, MPI3. The criterion for the selection of industry media cases is that the article content is about the meetings industry in the post pandemic period. The four MPI chapters are located in Africa, North America, Asia and Europe. Two random firms were chosen within each of these chapters. This generated a marketing material from the homepages total of 10 medium sized firms who offer meetings services. In addition, texts and visual material was collected from international meetings industry media articles published between 2020-2022. The empirical material was analyzed in two steps in accordance with culture analysis (Ehn and Löfgren 2001) identifying emerging first order themes in the data. The empirical themes were then related to the theoretical framework in a second step, by conceptualizing them into second order, theoretical categories (Aspers 2007, Gioia, Corley et al. 2013). The overarching analytical question “directed” to systematically analyze the material depart from the theoretical standpoint that values are co-created in a socio-cultural context. Values are understood as valuation propositions (Corvellec and Hultman 2014) in the strategic communication of the meetings industry and as part of a discursive change in the current state of the industry.
The post pandemic values of meetings
In a first step analysis, a few categories of value propositions were identified: the value of professional expertise, healthy meetings, green meetings, seamless high-tech meetings and last, flexible meetings. First, one recurring value is the offer of professional expertise on how to arrange meetings in the “right way”. Some firms offer the services of an online course on how to hold a meeting or they offer the expertise from a special meeting consultant that can be hired for learning about- and/or for creating professional meetings (www.scandichotels.com). Others offer courses on how to create a “good meeting culture”, and also how to buy meetings and conference services in a procurement process (Svenska Möten 2022). Second, in the “health-keeping type of meetings”, the physical distance between 1 While other markets were still under some restrictions (www.who.com). 2 According to ICCA (2020). ICCA Statistics Report Country and City Rankings – Public Abstract. ICCA is a nonprofit trade association that represents destinations and suppliers specialized in international meetings. 3 Meeting Professionals International (MPI) is a non-profit organization which is one of the largest meetings industry associations in the world. Founded in 1970, it has a global community of 60 000 meetings- and event professionals, including 15 000 member organizations in over 70 countries in Asia, South America, US, Canada and Europe (www.mpi.org). 4 participants are carefully managed on site, arranging the meeting room and the chairs in certain kinds of ways, invoking two meters distance between people, dividing the meals into timeslots, placing hand sanitizers in every room and so on. The health theme is still prevalent also in the online types of services as a health-safe option, like the digital meetings and streaming services. One prominent meetings actor is an organization owned by over 130 meeting facilities in Sweden who offer also online courses in how to book covid-safe meetings (Svenska Möten 2022). Quite a few meetings actors emphasize the value of nature, such as the sea and forests, near the meetings facility on offer. Some offer the possibility of holding walk and talks meetings outside. Third, a number of actors provides “Sustainable meetings” which communicates the value of “well considered transportation, the right facilities and climate smart food” (ibid.) which typically communicate, as above, that it is ecologically unsustainable to move across large distances, at least with fossil fueled transportation. “The green meeting” typically offer not a direct value as such, but rather offer a reduced impact on the environment in comparison to an “ordinary meeting”. But another type of “green meetings” is that the service product in itself “brings competence to the green industries” (www.gronamoten.agrovast.se). These “green meetings” gives buyers and their firm a “license” to state (to staff and other stakeholders) that they are environmentally friendly. The “green meeting” could also be interpreted as a way of legitimizing digital meetings. Fourth, one example of the category of seamless high-tech meetings is firm who offer digital cloud services for holding large scale digital meetings that are integrated with other digital services such as their social media. On the homepage they present an image of young woman sitting at a desk, describing the firm as: “…the world’s only communications cloud for events /…/Everything you need to drive meaningful insights and outcomes”. The image of a smiling woman in glasses with her sleeves up and a coffee-to-go on the desk indicates a work environment. No technology s visible in the image. The visitor/viewer is offered a trial of the service which promises connections to global target groups, interactive platforms and integrative data analysis of users’ online activities on social media. The values proposed in the marketing can be summoned as a seamless integrative access to high-tech services (www.notified.com). Last, as an example of the fifth category there is a meetings supplier homepage offering “hybrid meetings” which means that a meeting can take place “here, there or anywhere” (www.scandichotels.com). The choice of different types of meetings and events are being emphasized in the texts and images. The CEO of a hotel- and conference venue predicts in a tourism industry magazine interview about the future of the meetings industry that it is going to be: “…all about diversifying the supply” (www.besoksliv.se). The freedom of choice and flexibility for participants is being proposed as value for buyers of hybrid meetings. Here, the diversity of meetings services is constructed as a valuable offering.
Conclusions
All in all, the flexibility offered by meetings organizers is striking. It is conclusive to say that the values communicated in the marketing is everything from sensory experiences in sites to space independence. Safety regarding health is clearly another value. Also, the value of nature is communicated. On one hand there is the opportunity to experience the sea or the forest, on the other hand there is the offering of choosing the environmental service, that considers the industry ecological impact in various steps of the service delivery. There are even meetings firms who specialize in arranging meetings only for buyers who are themselves specialized in issues considering the environment. The preliminary result indicates a discussion about connections between resilience, innovation and the role the industry has in sustainable tourism development.
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Department/s
- Department of Strategic Communication
Publishing year
2022-09-27
Language
English
Pages
35-39
Document type
Conference paper: abstract
Topic
- Economic Geography
- Communication Studies
Conference name
30th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research
Conference date
2022-09-27 - 2022-09-29
Conference place
Porvoo, Finland
Status
Published
Project
- The meeting industry of the future: business models, interactions and hospitality in the age of digitalisation