THE IMPACT OF COVID 19 ON THE EVENT MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY

Abstract

Corona Virus Disease, or COVID-19, is an infectious disease that was discovered in China in late 2019. This disease has spread worldwide, causing a threat to human life. In almost all countries, the measures have dramatically affected businesses, regardless of their profile or size. The event management industry is also impacted by the outbreak since it is a business that relies on large groups of people coming together to celebrate a special occasion and attending events all around the world. This paper aims to describe how a global pandemic of Covid-19 has associated and interrupted the event businesses where physical events have either been canceled or postponed or held entirely virtually. In addition, it stated the fundamental changes in the event management practices on how the event industry-shifting physical events to virtual and hybrid models. On top of that, the Covid-19 outbreak also impacted the economic and social aspects of the event management industry. The economic impact stated in the paper is on decreasing profit-making, affecting the salary of event management workers, and lessening the investment while the social impact indicated that the awareness of the importance of events for socialization increased. Therefore, this study discussed the need for the event management industry to actively adapt to the changes for survival purposes by implementing strategies such as enhancing technologies and events tool, preparing risk assessments plan, establishing image branding of the company, and analyzing cost-effective financial planning in order to cope with such impacts.