With the coronavirus crisis bringing much of the meeting industry to a halt, Joe Guilderson (MPI WestField Chapter), president of Corporate Audio Visual Services, saw 60 events cancelled or postponed from March until the second week in May.
“The bulk of our business is in live events,” said Guilderson, whose company has offices in Elmsford, N.Y., and New York City. “It’s been pretty traumatic.”
Guilderson had to lay off 14 of his 20 employees at the 35-year-old company.
“There was no end in sight for us to point to,” he said in late March. “People could at least collect unemployment.”
Guilderson was keeping an eye on the aid for small businesses in the U.S. federal stimulus package to see if his business would qualify for a loan or other aid.
Although January and February were two of the best months in the company’s history, he didn’t expect all of those sales to translate to immediate revenue, given the pain customers were likely to be experiencing.
“We’re expecting past-due amounts are going to take longer to receive,” Guilderson said.
Against that backdrop, he had already reached out to the landlords of his two offices to share the company’s situation.
“One of the two was very open to discussions,” he said. “They’re both private businesses, as well. They’re going through the same thing we’re going through.”
Guilderson’s experience is emblematic of what many organizations in the meeting and event industry reported in the latest Meetings Outlook survey. The survey was out in the field as the novel coronavirus was becoming a clear-and-present threat to the meetings community, as countries started banning large events (and then small events) and hard-hit areas went into quarantine or shelter-in-place mode with the pandemic spreading. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of respondent comments noted that the virus is the issue impacting business.
“This is a tragedy,” said Steve O’Malley, division president of Maritz Travel and chair of the MPI International Board of Directors. “We’ve never experienced anything like this before.”
Pointing to the U.S. Travel Association’s projection that nearly 6 million jobs would be lost by the end of April, O’Malley said, “When you put that into perspective, in terms of how quickly it’s happening and the human toll, it’s dramatic.”
In the data from this latest survey there was a 12 percent increase in respondents who projected negative business conditions. Of note: There was also a 7 percent increase in those predicting that business would dip by more than 10 percent.
With uncertainty tied to the economy and upcoming U.S. national elections adding to a challenging environment, there was a massively quick market shift away from a strong seller’s market to one where buyers had an edge and some hotels were temporarily closing their doors.
The American Hotel and Lodging Association reported that, amidst a historic drop in room demand, nearly 3.9 million jobs were eliminated or would be eliminated in the next few weeks, as of late March. Marriott International, for instance, planned to furlough tens of thousands of its 174,000 workers, which meant not paying their salaries while they were not working but continuing their healthcare benefits.
At the time of the survey, it appeared there would be a shift back to a seller’s market by the end of the year. However, that will depend on how quickly the pandemic peaks and countries can get back to business safely.
“I’m confident the travel industry will come back,” O’Malley said. “We are a people business. People need face-to-face connection. At MPI, we say, ‘When we meet, we change the world.’ At some point, when this virus is defeated, there will be a greater need to get together. There’s going to be a greater need for the effect meetings and events share for building community and making human connections when we come out of this.”
However, O’Malley said it was essential for the federal government to provide aid quickly.
“When you look at so many businesses in the meeting and event industry, many are small businesses,” he said. “We need to get money to them until activity starts to come back.”
To learn more about how meeting professionals are adapting and preparing for recovery in the full Meetings Outlook report, download it now. Meetings Outlook is supported in partnership with IMEX Group.
