Spain, a leader in corporate and MICE events, has really started to feel the terrible effects of the Covid-19 crisis. A whopping 95% of corporate events planned for 2020 got cancelled because of preventative measures, and only a few were moved to late 2020 and early 2021.

Lots of Convention Bureaus have had to totally rethink what they do, since holding events just isn't possible right now. Because of this, the main affected regions have kicked off an initiative to make choosing a venue a bit smoother once the MICE industry gets back on its feet.

So, Spanish Convention Bureaus are teaming up to prevent even more cancellations. The whole idea is to put in the maximum effort to relocate events instead of just cancelling them, and they're really encouraging clients to go this route. To do this, they're checking out all the main city venues, collecting as much info as possible to help organizers with things like capacity, availability, and what each venue offers.

Just keep in mind that postponing an event means you've got to consider the availability of a bunch of things like venues, hotels, suppliers, and other extra services. That's why it's super important to be extra careful to avoid any capacity or logistics headaches.

Other things being done by Convention Bureaus include: work-from-home policies to avoid temporary layoffs; repurposing some services, like tourist information officers who currently don't have many tourists, are now specializing in government aid to share information and offer personalized advice to their partners on how to access these programs; and keeping in touch with organizers, clients, partners, and airlines to get things back up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Some agencies, DMCs, OPCs, hotels, and venues are also jumping in to help prevent more cancellations. They're being flexible with their postponement policies to avoid any reputation issues, because getting this whole sector back on track is really a team effort. So, destinations need to stay positive and look after their clients, especially since crises can actually be big opportunities where creativity shines more than just knowing all the facts.

Ultimately, if we're facing a health crisis as a country, then as a country, we also need to help the MICE industry get back on its feet.