{"id":10779,"date":"2022-02-22T14:34:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T19:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottburrows.com\/?p=10779"},"modified":"2022-02-22T14:34:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T19:34:37","slug":"scott-burrows-resilience-speaker-for-associations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottburrows.319heads.com\/scott-burrows-resilience-speaker-for-associations\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Burrows, Resilience Speaker for Associations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As a motivational speaker on resilient associations<\/a>, I was naturally interested in the 2022 Global Meetings and Event Forecast<\/a> as reported on November 9, 2021 by Janeen Christoff for American Express Travel<\/em>. Some numbers that came out from the forecast were that:<\/p>\n \u201cTwo-thirds (67 percent) of respondents believe in-person meeting levels will return to their pre-pandemic numbers<\/em> within one to two years\u2026Eighty-one percent<\/em> of events taking place in 2022 are expected to have at least an in-person component\u2026(and) budgets are also increasing for events with 64 percent of respondents<\/em> indicating that they are boosting their budgets<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n This is Good News, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n On the surface, the numbers certainly look impressive. Associations and meeting venues, essentially shut down from late 2019 to the last part of 2021, are slowly stirring back to life. However, we shouldn\u2019t assume it will be business as usual. Habits, especially habits borne out of fear, won\u2019t be broken without effort.<\/p>\n The key word in the questions asked in the forecast above was \u201ccomfort.\u201d For example, the 67 percent who answered they believe in-person meetings will return to pre-pandemic levels were gauged as to their comfort levels<\/em> that it would be possible.<\/p>\n There is more than a subtle difference in believing an in-person meeting<\/em> could take place and having the comfort<\/em> to attend that event.<\/p>\n If we assume that COVID-19 will continue to go from pandemic to endemic (much like the flu) and the levels of COVID-19 transmission continue to decline, will the meetings and associations industry magically<\/em> recover? I think not. As with any other virus, we can expect subvariants to pop up, possible, annual vaccines, and changes in rules for travel, masks, social distancing and the like. For the shorter term, we will all need resilience to bridge the gap from belief to actual comfort.<\/p>\n What will it take?<\/strong><\/p>\n