HOW LIKELY ARE ATTENDEES TO TRAVEL TO YOUR NEXT EVENT?

22 May HOW LIKELY ARE ATTENDEES TO TRAVEL TO YOUR NEXT EVENT?

Events being given the green light is only part of the puzzle when it comes to the recovery of the industry — the other part is getting attendees to show up. When you are finally able to plan an event, will people be willing to travel to it?
The cities of Lagos, Abuja and Ogun state were officially allowed the resumption of B2B trade shows. The first exhibition since the start of the pandemic took place earlier this month, and in Lagos, trade associations have not been successful in lobbing the government into distinguishing trade shows from “mass gatherings,” with large number of people still gathering within business environments.
While this could certainly herald good news for the events industry, there are still many factors to consider in the organization of these events — namely, will attendees show up?
According to recent research in the US by Skift, Americans are eager to travel: 27% said they would travel within three months after the outbreak, and another 28% would travel in four to six months.
However, the situation is complex. Just because certain activities are no longer forced to be closed, doesn’t mean that everyone will rush back to normalcy at the same time. A recent poll revealed that over 60% of elites in Lagos state still believe it’s still too early to reopen the country.
The reality is that some persons may still be unwilling to travel, especially to covid-19 hotspot state. Some may not resume normal activities despite being permitted to. So, what factors will determine when travel opens back up? And will attendees actually be willing and able to travel to a live event when it does?
Criteria for Attending
In order for travel and events to resume — first and foremost — it must be deemed safe. “Safe” is far from an absolute term, with each state determining its own acceptable risk of starting to reopen the economy, and what guidelines will be put in place in order to do so largely independently.
Many States have now started reopening, like Bayelsa state just did this morning. But there is still widespread hesitance to travel. Some needed prerequisite must be met before the fears associated with the pandemic can be dissolved.
Once governments and health officials consider it safe to travel, the next condition is that people must actually feel comfortable with the potential risks involved and consider it safe themselves. Until speakers and attendees feel safe traveling, regardless of the official restrictions, they’ll stay home.
The final criterion is that the relative benefit of traveling to an in-person event, as opposed to attending virtually, actually outweighs the risk. In an age of online events, virtual will provide an alternative with real value, becoming the new baseline for measuring the merit of organizing and traveling to live events.

Local Lockdowns
Another factor adding to the complicated travel recovery timeline — especially inter-state travel ban —is the lack of cohesive lockdown regulations around the nation. For example, some states never implemented any sort of lockdown, till recently but most other hotspot regions like Lagos state have been on partial lockdown even before the national directive on the intra-state lockdown for the three most affected cities in early March.
In the meantime, restrictions in other places — like the inter-state travel ban, remain in effect until further notice. Most commuters and traders will likely remain extremely limited for at least the next few weeks as most non-residents may still be restricted from traveling to and from certain parts of the country.
And for those who continue to subscribe to the merits of a lockdown rationale may be reluctant to travel to areas that are easing restrictions due to economic pressure, especially if they are not sufficiently testing to substantiate the flatness of their new cases curve or the impact of those eased restrictions on the outbreaks in their areas.
Quarantine Regulations
Throughout the coronavirus outbreak, many cities have imposed supervised quarantine or self-quarantine regulations. This means that, even if visitors are able to enter the state, they must be arrested or better still isolated for 14 days.
Obviously, this isn’t very conducive for events. If attendees are ordered to quarantine for two weeks upon arriving at their destination say Lagos state, this will weigh heavily against their disposition to come for the sake of a conference/events in which they could otherwise have an albeit more limited role virtually.
What Are People Saying?
As travel slowly becomes possible again, there are two major takeaways to consider when determining whether attendees will travel to events: people’s comfort level and perception of safety, and secondly the distance they would need to travel to attend the event.
For instance, Skift’s March US Travel Tracker found that almost two-thirds of Americans expected their first post-coronavirus trip to be by car, less than 100 miles from home. This indicates that most people will be looking to travel somewhat locally when they do start to travel again.
In a recent Twitter poll by Skift CEO Rafat Ali, 66.5% of respondents said there’s no way they would travel to a business event in August or September. Only 20% said they’d be willing to fly, and 13% would be willing to drive. Interestingly, the same poll on LinkedIn received different results: 39% of respondents indicated that they would be willing to fly to an event in Q3, while slightly less than half (48%) said there was no way they’d travel.
Although the latter is more optimistic, it still echoes the same sentiment: the majority of people don’t feel comfortable with the idea of traveling in the next three months. That said, there are attendees who will be willing to travel once they’re able, but due to ongoing travel restrictions, it will be more feasible for many people to travel locally rather than internationally — at least for the time being.
Budget will also be a factor. Most Nigerians are really facing difficult times now. One would expressly expect the travelling habits of Nigerians to reduce drastically after the pandemic. Hybrid events will therefore become incredibly important in order to make up for the lowered capacity of initial in-person events and to increase the event’s reach to anyone who is interested but only able or willing to attend virtually.
All of this generally points to a trend toward smaller local events for at least the next two months or so, depending on how quickly we are able to phase out of the pandemic lockdown. If we are to conduct a realistic pool on whether or not events will bounce back this year strongly, we will certainly get different views from all planners.

IN CONCLUSION
The easing of restrictions in many regions and the official go-ahead from China, Austria, and Germany to resume trade shows is incredibly promising for the events industry, but we’re still far from a full recovery. The reopening of the world’s major economies will be marred by uncertainty and experimentation, just as the rest of the pandemic has been.
Revenge attending may help certain events get back on their feet, but it’s not something that can be counted on, especially in the early days as travel remains restricted. Event attendance will come down to how well countries continue to manage the virus’s spread as well as how risky attendees perceive travel to be for the foreseeable future.