HTNG continues to aid hotels in rebuilding industry business after the COVID-19 pandemic with a newly formed Hybrid Meetings and Events Workgroup.
While the meetings and events space has historically drawn a vast amount of business for the hotel industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has detrimentally evaporated both business and leisure travel throughout 2020 and up until now in 2021.
Positive recovery signs indicate a gradual return to business travel and group business (whether hybrid, virtual, in-person or a combination thereof), with strategic projections suggesting a return to 2019 levels by 2024. Many business-oriented, or large hotels in conjunction with convention centers, may not survive that elongated timeline due to group business dependence.
HTNG’s Hybrid Meetings and Events Workgroup will work to expedite this process by creating a playbook to help hospitality companies adapt to the short-term and long-term effects of the pandemic, both regarding business and leisure events. This output will enable hotels to support new types of meetings that expand beyond the traditional in-person event space, utilizing virtual meeting technology and health management techniques that will return hotels to prior meeting and event profitability.
The HTNG Hybrid Meetings and Events Workgroup’s kick-off teleconference will be held on May 20, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. Central. HTNG members can join the workgroup after signing in here.
For any questions or for more information, please contact workgroups@htng.org.
