Recovery is going to be defined in different ways by different places.  For some, it will simply be focused on regaining lost business levels.  For others, it will be more of a rebirth of an entire community.

One area that will define recovery success will be reestablishing the role of destination events.  Given that 2020 in most locales was a fully lost event year, the recovery of events allows a rare opportunity for measuring their role in driving demand to a destination.  In this manner, the event delivers more than economic benefits as it generates visitation compression across the community. 

Compression fits several descriptions as it spreads overnight stays, helps to blanket business across neighborhoods, and supplements other gatherings taking place within the community.  Compression can be easily visualized by thinking of room inventory as a series of glasses filled to various levels reflective of overnight occupancy.  Events add more liquid to those glasses helping to reach higher levels of compression. As more liquid is added, the business volume increases, as does the impact across the community.

As events play a role in recovery, compression of visitation and location should become a consideration moving forward.  These events need to be reformed in ways that are most meaningful and most impactful for the community.  Compression allows this process to be strategically planned and managed rather than being simply reassembled as they once were.

In a “normal” year, compression can be easily assessed by mapping event dates against daily hotel occupancy rates.  Comparisons can be made across years based on occupancy levels, visitation estimates and impact calculations.  The resulting worksheet can provide a valuable decision-making tool for configuring future events and sales efforts in a meaningful, intentional distribution for optimizing the impact.  The comparison depends on taking a wide view when mapping events.  Events should be considered as anything having a start date and an end date within a given year. Here are some examples both of possible event demand drivers and of types of compression:

Compression mapping must be focused on demand drivers of actual or potential overnight stays.  Communities are filled with events that add to activity volume but do not drive overnight business.  The point of compression analysis is to show event-sourced visitation, not simply document activity volume. 

The compression mapping will begin to take shape and grow as more information is added.  The number of fields and level of detail used for the compression mapping is completely dependent upon the destination’s access to information.   At minimum, the destination must have weekly STR reports.  Here is a suggested framework for the mapping organized by month:

As mentioned earlier, compression mapping serves a few different purposes.  It can more clearly demonstrate impact and need for event-related business across a community. It also allows destinations to better manage the pursuit and positioning of events over the span of the year.  The initial rush to return to a past semblance of normal may result in destinations reinstalling events as they previously were prior to pandemic.  Compression mapping provides a tool for more thoughtful consideration of how the event can best be positioned and placed to optimize its community benefit.  By using the information gathered through compression mapping, destination and community leaders can better manage visitor flow and impact in a more meaningful manner.  Examples of decision making help include:

• Saying no.
  Some events may not be a good fit for a community.  Compression analysis provides backing for removing these events.
• Directing where.

Prior to COVID-19, many destination downtowns were pushing back on certain events, especially large-scale lifestyle or sports gatherings that involved significant street closures.Compression mapping can help determine alternative placement for event locations.

• Directing when.

“When” is similar to “Where” but instead of location, the variable is time of year.As recovery takes place, event distribution should only involve stacking when compression can absorb the added volume.

• Managing carrying capacity and volume.

By guiding when and where, the destination can help to manage event-caused congestion across the community.

• Communicating activity.

Event compression allows the destination to communicate visitation levels in a more meaningful manner than room nights generated.The notion of days and weeks of different levels of compression gives a better sense of how distributed the visitor impacts were across the community.

• Coordinating sales targeting.

Compression analysis helps to determine more fully how sales teams are pursuing other events.Time of the year and attendance level factor more greatly as qualifiers in targeting meetings and conventions while helping achieve more decisive and demonstrative hotel participation in the bid process.

• Applying booking incentives.

Some will position that recovery will hopefully mark the end of incentivizing event bookings.It is more likely to be the beginning of a mad rush to recklessly incentivize as destinations hope to kickstart their visitor economies.Compression-based decision making can help destinations ease into meaningful incentives that prop-up times of the year, event locations, and types of events that bolster overall community benefit.Incentives of the future should be managed based on needed volume more than level of volume.

• Adding to community image.

Events often enhance the image and perception of the community.Compression mapping provides a method to track those events that imbue the values of the community to allow another consideration for measuring event impact.

The idea of compression mapping is by no means a new concept.  In fact, this article may seem obvious to readers accustomed to managing their destination business, but the intent of this is to mark a new day of extending the concept of event impacts into the broader context of the community.  Event management is one important aspect of recovery.  Data is the first ingredient to an optimistic view of the future.  Here is to a glass half full.

About David:

David Holder co-founded Clarity of Place with a hands-on understanding of what destination leaders need to be successful. David translates community inputs into meaningful actions by interpreting needs into priorities.