Ms.

Jennifer Glynn, CIS, CITP | President, Society for Incentive Travel

Key Insights:
1. COVID-19 caused devastation in our sector. No business or individual has been spared.
2. Airline traffic will be the biggest factor to restarting our industry and specifically the incentive
travel for all of us who are aching to get out from our homes.
3. A positive outlook but with cautious optimism, seeing restrictions eased in some countries,
and a semblance of normalcy or the new normal.
4. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. This, too, shall pass and the event industry will forever
be changed.
5. No devastation has had a far-reaching effect on the industry as this pandemic since the 9-11
terrorist attacks with estimated US$450 billion losses for tourism this year.

Solutions:
1. Travel screens from protective screens for chuck-in agents to in-flight janitors and thermal
scanners.
2. Proceed with caution approach postponing not cancelling their incentives programs.
3. Instead of travel programs, focus on sales target.
4. Bring unique experiences and more personalization that we’ve often seen.
5. Keep our community connected during these difficult times.

Perspectives:
1. It’s very encouraging to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
2. To lead from different sectors of our membership, the mandate will be to look at opportunities
to help the incentive travel industry rebound as quickly as possible.
3. Incentives program can be a part of the corporation’s recovery.
4. It’s interesting to see how’s people communication started from virtual cocktail hours and
how to adjust from working from home.
5. Short term increase in individual travel incentives because not all of us will be ready to jump
on a plane and travel globally.
Excellence (SITE) * Mr. Mark Cochrane | Regional Manager, The Global Association of
the Exhibition Industry (UFI)

Key Insights:
1. The COVID-19 crisis is unlike anything that have ever seen before, impacting the exhibition
industry, and affecting hundreds of thousands of service providers and SMEs.
2. Some markets in Asia, particularly China, are starting to move back into action although some
events facilities, including those in Manila, are being used for medical support purposes.
3. Local clients are likely to serve as the top market for MICE tourism in the meantime.
4. The government would play an important role in the recovery of the industry, citing the moves
Thailand made to assist MICE entrepreneurs amid the health crisis.
5. Some provinces are kind of testing how far they can push it.

Solutions:
1. Venues are used as medical and testing services.
2. China will open first primarily with domestic events.
3. Look at their portfolios like do they want to focus on their biggest and strongest events, etc.
4. Some markets already announced packages from their government that they’re doing after the
virus is clear.
5. They are going to do 12 months of free venue rentals for all organizers that hold exhibitions at
either Asia World Expo or HK CEC.

Perspectives:
1. Venue capacity is going to be an issue in venue constrained markets.
2. Who survives this crisis will impact the industry.
3. The people who build the stand provide the F and B, a lot of those are labor-intensive.
4. It’s going to impact the quality of events and undermine the recovery overall.
5. A massive impact on the competitive landscape.
Mr. Noor Ahmad Hamid | Regional Director, Asia Pacific, International Congress &
Conventions Association (ICCA)

Key Insights:
1. Optimism is compulsory, not an option.
2. Workers must return to work and cannot be on lockdown forever, markets in Asia may be
slowly and cautiously coming back including major cities in China, New Zealand, and Australia.
3. Most of the international association meetings characteristic is that they can be planned or
confirmed a far in advance.
4. We have members all around the world predominantly suppliers.
5. Very small less than 7% meetings being affected some of them being postponed or deferred to
a later date.

Solutions:
1. Decided to postpone the event which supposed to take place in Kuala Lumpur.
2. Start doing the research for this virus.
3. All events not just conferences organized by international associations they all had to be
postponed or cancelled.
4. Safety and travel restrictions.
5. Continue to communicate through webinars.

Perspectives:
1. Philippine has been doing the best over the last 7 years 10 years we have more than 70
meetings posted in the Philippines so this is something that's good and obviously we would know
for 2020 ranking it will be a huge disruption not just for Philippine but for all over the world so
that's the situation that's happening right now.
2. This is not about number of meetings it is about people, like people losing their jobs, company
are cruising down.
3. Collaboration needed between the private sector and the public sector because the control
movement order or travel restrictions are being imposed.
4. Nobody can organize any meetings or any conferences without the permit.
5. To return to Manila in the hopes of organizing a future ICCA event.