Rise in COVID-19 Variants Tempers Business Travel

Business travel is slowly making its way back, emphasis on slowly.

In a report in the New York Times, the newspaper noted that convention centers around the country are reopening and airlines and hotels are seeing their bookings rise slightly.

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The rise in COVID-19 strains such as the Delta variant has tempered any enthusiasm for a rapid recovery similar to what has taken place with leisure travel.

“We’ll (still) likely see some cancellations or certainly meetings being pushed out by weeks or months,” Scott Graf, global president of BCD Meetings & Events, told The Times. “(But), I may be optimistic but it is my hope that vaccination progress will increase dramatically over the next 60 to 90 days and that the fourth quarter and early 2022 will still be quite strong.”

Frank Passanante, senior vice president of Hilton Worldwide Sales, the Americas, was equally optimistic. He said he expected “large-scale conference” business to continue to improve in the second half of 2021.

“There is no replacement for live meetings,” he said. “Face-to-face will come back.”

Among the most optimistic about prospects for professional meetings, conventions and events in the United States was Meeting Professionals International, a trade group.

“Recognizing that the Delta variant may impact near-term demand,” the group said in a statement that it “remains optimistic about the return of meetings and events.”

But there is a ‘two steps up, one step back’ feel to it. Convention centers, for instance, are reopening. The Jacob Javits Center in New York City reopened on Sunday and the San Diego Convention Center, home of the world-famous annual Comic-Con, reopened last week.

But already the Javits Center lost one of its premier events when organizers of the New York International Auto Show canceled the event.

Many experts said they did not believe many conventions would be canceled outright but, rather, that attendance would be down.

Clifford Rippetoe, the president and chief executive of the San Diego Convention Center Corporation, said he expected attendance at events this year to be 40 to 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels, and next year to be 70 percent.

“Attendance is the biggest question mark at the moment,” he said. “We expect events with more U.S.-based membership and participation to be closer to previous years than those with a more international audience.”