Meetex: Most meetings and congresses in Croatia postponed until autumn

The second Croatian Meeting Experience Summit Meetex on Tuesday attracted around 150 local and foreign participants from about 20 countries. The participants are meeting face-to-face to arrange business deals for this and next year at a time when most conferences and meetings in Croatia are being postponed until autumn due to the coronavirus outbreak.

This year again, the aim of Meetex, organised by the Croatian Meeting Professionals Association (HUPKT) and the "Inovativni Eventi" company, was to connect local hotels, travel agencies, tourist boards, convention bureaus and other service providers in Croatia with international buyers and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) event organisers.

If the situation does not calm down until summer, it will be difficult to make up for loss

The attendees of the summit, held in a relatively empty Westin Hotel, are hoping that the coronavirus epidemic would soon end or at least that the situation will calm down so that the economic damage would be as low as possible this year, as it will be difficult to make up for the loss if the virus continues to spread until the summer.

Several exhibitors cancelled their attendance, but almost all foreign buyers came to the summit, Aleksandra Uhernik Djurdjek, a member of the organising committee and director of the "Eventfully Croatia" company, told Hina. She underscored that this year would have been excellent for meeting planners if it had not been for the coronavirus.

HUPKT director Ranko Filipovic assessed that the coronavirus would significantly affect all tourism, while meeting planning might be affected even more, with a decline in turnover of up to 20%, since its busiest times of the year were the preseason and the postseason, and this preseason had already been lost.

Negative impact of coronavirus on tourism visible in Central and Eastern Europe

Deputy Chair of the International Congress and Convention Association's (ICCA) Central Europe Chapter Igor Kovacevic said that the coronavirus had not had a big impact on the global market of meetings and congresses so far. He underscored that Croatia was the leading country in the region for congresses as it had diverse services.

According to ICCA data, since December more than a thousand international association meetings have been scheduled in the Asia Pacific area, and 7.8% of them have been affected by the virus, including around 6% that have been cancelled or postponed.

In Europe, the impact on the market has not been as dramatic, as out of more than 2,500 international association meetings, merely 1% have been affected so far, with 0.4% being postponed, 0.1% relocated and only 0.3% cancelled, Kovacevic said.

However, the coronavirus has been making an impact, mostly due to alarm, negative communication and bombastic news, so it is important that clients, guests and everyone else in all destinations follow instructions by relevant authorities, he added. (Hina/FaH)

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