Third wave of research on domestic corporate events highlights changing sentiment
Tourism Australia’s third wave of research charting the evolving attitudes of Australian corporate decision-makers to restarting events domestically shows the appetite for business events continues to build.
Ninety-one per cent of decision-makers surveyed in early December say they have either been running events over the last 9-10 months or intend to start doing so in the near future – this is up from 84 per cent in the second research wave in October.
The timeframe in which future events are likely to happen appears to be shrinking, with an increased proportion of businesses – almost two-thirds in this research wave, up five per cent since October and 16 per cent since the first wave in August – claiming they will hold events in the next 6-12 months. There is also an increased desire to return to face-to-face events as soon as possible.
Intrastate or no travel continues to be favoured over interstate travel although an intention for events to involve interstate travel rose slightly compared to the second wave of research.
State and national conferences and incentive events are the top three event types organisations are intending to run in the next 12 to 18 months or sooner.
Seventy-eight per cent of decision-makers said they believed their event budgets would be the same or higher in the next twelve months, compared to the 2019-2020 financial year.
The research was conducted 2-11 December, surveying 453 corporate decision-makers, almost a third of which work for companies with 50-249 employees.
