Then all of a sudden, nothing. "Our hotel, which opened in June 2019, was running at 500 km an hour, and then we had to stop our activity abruptly"sums up Madelijn Vervoord, General Manager of the InterContinental Lyon-Hôtel-Dieu. With the announcement of the lockdown, the Academy, the hotel's convention centre which used to host 100 to 120 events a month, suddenly found itself deserted. The entire global hotel industry experienced the same thing. reversal of fortune than this establishment in Lyon. No more travel, which means no more business customers and no more business meetings. And while travel resumed at the beginning of the summer, a return to normal is not expected before 2022. At best.
"Say, when are you coming back? Do you even know?" At the start of the new school year, traditionally a busy time for meetings, the future of the meetings segment is still very unclear. Will the spread of the virus and the quarantine measures force companies to keep professional meetings to a minimum ? Will companies freeze their event budgets, which are among the first to be slashed in times of crisis? Will demonstrating the effectiveness of virtual meeting solutions have an impact on travel habits?
For Ralph Hollister, tourism analyst at GlobalData, the answer to all these questions is yes, unfortunately: "In addition to the fact that MICE travel is now considered to be a unnecessary financial burdenAs a result, business travellers may be less inclined to undertake the frequent, and often stressful, trips they made before the pandemic."And the analyst added: "The danger of contracting the virus, combined with the fact that business travellers can now achieve the same goals from the comfort of their own homes, means that demand for many MICE events is likely to decline."
Decrease, without a doubt. Hoteliers have all made up their minds on this point. For all that, is there any reason to hope? The business is not completely at a standstill. A specialist in the sector with its Seminary houses in the great green and its urban settlements CityChâteauform' has seen it for itself. "In July, we received the equivalent of 70 % of booking requests for the coming months compared with those received in July 2019.remarks Gérald Coutaudier, Group Managing Director. In the end, we expected to reopen around twenty homes before the summer. But, spurred on by the demand, around forty have resumed their activities."
In the immediate post-containment periodFor example, companies of all sizes have needed to reunite their teams after months of distance and meetings via Zoom or Teams. "Nobody was prepared for the current situationsays Marie Bernheim, Head of City Experience at Châteauform'. Companies have had to organise post-crisis meetings to define new strategic plans and give their teams the roadmap for the second half of the year".
This demand for seminars and board meetings came mainly from local customers. As for establishments designed for large-scale meetings or those dependent on international clientele, the phone rang a little less than before. A good half of Paris's top-of-the-range hotels have decided to postpone their reopening until September, while employees return to their office towers and travel resumes.
The health aspect of today's meetings and seminars has become a decisive criterion for organisers, as no company wants to see one of its meetings turn into a cluster.
Unfortunately, the virus has not taken a break, and the quarantine measures introduced by some countries, such as the United Kingdom, and the warnings issued by others about travelling to the Paris region, have cast a shadow over the back-to-school season. "Even professionals from the provinces are reluctant to come and work in Parissays Fanny Guibouret, Managing Director of the Hôtel du Louvrepart of Hyatt's Unbound Collection. For all Paris hotels, the situation is gloomy. We get requests for events of around thirty people, but as Parisians don't need accommodation and foreign clients are coming back in dribs and drabs, we have fewer residents than we used to."
Less dependent on international flows, hotels in the French regions seem to be doing better. In Deauville, La Baule or Dinard, the Barrière group is seeing a change in the nature of the events it hosts. "While the first demonstrations were mainly management committees of 10 to 30 people to discuss strategy, we hosted sales force seminars at the end of August, as companies needed to reinvigorate their sales forces."explains Carine Le Saux, the group's director of sales for France. Another finding was that prestigious events that were due to be held abroad were being moved back to the Majestic in Cannes. "Companies don't want to take the risk of sending their staff abroad and these events are now a Franco-French affair."adds Carine Le Saux.
At the InterContinental Lyon, we're also seeing a gradual increase in both the geographical origin and the number of event participants. "After serving a local clientele for board meetings, we are now receiving requests for meetings on a national scale, for up to 100 people, in September.explains Madelijn Vervoord. Then, towards the end of the year, there were events with more than 100 participants which are expected, sometimes with international speakers. Finally, we have requests for meetings of 200 to 250 people for early 2021. After that, there are limits. There is always a distance to be respected."
The famous barrier gestures... The health aspect of today's meetings and seminars has become a decisive criterion of choice, as no company wants to see one of its meetings turn into a cluster. "Companies understand this and expect sanitary measures to be respected, which reassures them. No one is looking for a free pass"says Fanny Guibouret of the Hôtel du Louvre. For Carine Le Saux, from the Barrière group, "the quality of sanitary measures is a real market demand. When a seminar is entrusted to us, it is a company's employees or customers who are entrusted to us. It's our duty to protect them."
To avoid any risks for their customers and employees alike, hotel groups have reviewed all their health protocols with programmes tailored to meetings, such as Meet Confidence at IHG, Hilton Event Ready for the American group of the same name and All Meet Well at Accor. In practice, these new measures have more or less a common basis, with hydro-alcoholic gel, increased cleaning and regular disinfection of high-contact areas, sanitisation of rooms before participants arrive and during breaks, a review of the configuration and capacity of the rooms in the light of the need for social distancing. "All the capacities of our lounges have been reduced to ensure a circle of one metre between each participant. In our boardroom-style rooms, where we can only accommodate around ten people, we offer Plexiglas partitions to ensure safety without having to limit the number of participants.explains Fanny Guibouret. As for the mask, it's obviously de rigueur. "There may have been some tolerance in the past if the room could be ventilated by opening the windows.she continues. It has become compulsory, except at mealtimes".
Because of the circulation of the virus, many things have had to be rethoughtThis is particularly true of catering. While some hotels have replaced the usual buffets with meal trays, others have adapted them, as at Châteauform' and the Hôtel du Louvre. "The portions are individual to avoid participants having to pass the tongs between themselves. Once they have been served, they are asked to return to their seats and not to stand around chatting.explains Fanny Guibouret. We also have meal trays, but a lot of customers thought it was a shame not to be able to choose. A buffet is friendlier and more dynamic."
For the Barrière group, it's the way we welcome guests that has changed. "We have worked hard to redefine the traffic flow for our teams and our customers."says Carine Le Saux. During seminars, for example, there are several welcome points for limiting flows. "This requires a major preparatory phase to avoid clusters.she adds. By the end of the year, we will be rolling out a paperless check-in/check-out system to make the process even smoother."
No contact requiredAt the Châteauform' group homes, meeting participants will no longer find pencils, notepads and water jugs at their disposal. To compensate for this absence, they are given a bag with everything they need for the day: a notebook, a pencil and a face mask. "And sweets too, because they can't help themselves any more.says Marie Bernheim. We can no longer leave them at their disposal, as handling is reduced to a minimum."
As an important part of a seminar, team-building activities must also fit into this new framework. "For example, we offer digital treasure huntswith just one person holding the tabletsays Carine Le Saux. As autumn and winter arrive, we're working with our partners to build indoor offerings."
Faced with the rise of Zoom, Teams and the like, the biggest adjustment facing players in the meetings segment today is how to accommodate their potential competitor, videoconferencing.
But while Zoom, Teams and the like have successfully brought employees together for months on end, the biggest adaptation facing the players in the meetings segment today is the place they are going to have to offer to their potential competitor, videoconferencing. Hybrid, phygital Tomorrow's event, if it is to keep up with the times, cannot be conceived without a virtual component.
Through its Studio offer, the InterContinental Lyon has looked into the subject by making its presidential suite available for small meetings of up to ten participants, with, as a bonus, all the technology needed to add a virtual part to the eventt. "The presidential suite, which is not usually accessible to groups, was used for a major contract signing, with ten people around the table and 60 participants by videoconference."says Madelijn Vervoord. The hotel also offers an Executive Committee package, incorporating cutting-edge technologies such as a video-conferencing system, streaming and a digital whiteboard.
In the same vein, Châteauform' has extended the use of videoconferencing to all the rooms in its establishments, both in town and in the great outdoors. To go even further, the corporate meetings specialist has also developed a streaming offer with a partner, Stardust Group, in order to be able to duplex and connect speakers from all over the world to companies at seminars. "This possibility existed, but on a case-by-case basis, on request. Now we have a real package for videoconferencing."says Marie Bernheim.
Driven as much by the boom in virtual meeting solutions as by the ever-present disincentives to travel, a new trend is beginning to emerge with half face-to-face, half virtual, multi-site seminars. Carine Le Saux thus foresees events ".with participants physically located in several of our hotels and coming together for virtual plenary sessions. This mix between face-to-face and digital means that a company's messages get across via the web, but with seminars that are also held inside our meeting rooms."
"It's a real demand, and one that's tending to grownotes Julien Kauffmann, CEO France of American Express GBT. We have set up a programme of hybrid meetings for our customers, combining both physical meetings and videoconferences. Where before, a company would organise a major European conference for its customers, today we build events that take place in five or six locations each time with 200 or 300 participants and a videoconference relay."
It's more than certain that videoconferencing will emerge as one of the big winners from the current crisis. However, are these hybrid meetings here to stay, or will they become the norm? is it just a momentary response to an environment in turmoil? "The cursors will move one way or another, but face-to-face meetings, team-building seminars and training courses will remain as essential as ever.says Gérald Coutaudier. You can't create a corporate culture by teleworking. Our conviction is that people will emerge stronger from this crisis."
