How can you reduce your delegate’s need to travel?

Many things can impact whether a person attends a conference and sometimes conditions outside of their control determine whether they can attend in person.  In Australia depending on the season, our industry can be impacted by cyclones and most recently this year in 2020, bushfires.  Many industries are being heavily impacted by the concerns over the coronavirus, with major conferences and events around the world being cancelled, rescheduled or redesigned.

Concern is being raised from a variety of industry sectors that all rely on delegates travelling to and from conferences, often staying before or after to experience the destination.  The travel industry seems to be hardest hit and major conferences such as the 70^th International Communication Association (ICA) Conference scheduled for the Gold Coast in May have been restructured into entirely virtual conference.  The advice in the ICA’s communication is that increasingly universities are restricting travel for academic staff and cautioning that university travel insurance may not cover them if they contract the virus while travelling.  As result delegates are choosing not to attend.

As more and more International events and conferences are impacted by these decisions, you may be concerned about how you are going to deliver on your conference requirements in the next 12 months.  Will you still deliver a physical conference?  If you take your conference online, how will that work?  Will it cost you more money if you deliver a “virtual” conference, or will it be less?  How do you make sure that only people who have registered and paid to attend your conference get access to the content?  Should and will you still charge the same registration fees?  You may have these, and many more questions being tossed around in your office.

We are here at Conference Online to help you find a solution to your challenges.  If you’re trying to work out if a virtual conference is the right option for you, we are happy to help you figure out what solutions you need.  We can let you know what you should be budgeting for, and where you might be able to find the right providers for what you need.  Maybe you’re looking at a hybrid version, online and local, or maybe everyone live streams from their own facility.  We can help you work out what option is best for you, even some that you may not have heard of.

Dan is our technical expert and to help you work out what your options might be, we’re happy to offer him to you, to be your technical expert too.  If you need help working out how you might be able to change your conference that results in reduced necessity to travel, call today and make a time to talk with Dan.  Call us on 07 55253875 or email daniel@conferenceonline.com.au and we will do our best to help you come up with alternative conference solutions.  Our knowledge around technology is vast and we can help if you’re not sure what to do, whether you use our systems or not.  To find out more about us visit www.conferenceonline.com.au.

For more information about the coronavirus and to stay up to date on alerts, go to the https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov for Australian relevant content.  For the global perspective on the situation visit the World Health Organisation website.