Event organizers must be more ‘cognizant’ about DE&I

Event planners need to be more “cognizant” about diversity, equity and inclusion, according to a corporate travel leader.

Kaori Pereyra-Lago, from American Express Global Business Travel, told ExpoPlatform that findings from their recent study show this topic had become “key” for a lot of eventprofs.

The 2023 Global Meetings and Events Forecast revealed 87% of survey respondents say their organisations or clients actively strive to incorporate DE&I into their meetings and events.

She said: “It’s always been there but it’s never been vocalised as such. It has now become a really key topic – DE&I is everywhere.

“If you look at LinkedIn or any of the press in a professional environment, it is everywhere.

“We have a really good system called inclusion group. So it could be a diversity of certain sexual orientation or race or any of that – we have a disabled group called In-enable.

“One of my colleagues told me to always ask the question – just because somebody looks disadvantaged or something, that doesn’t mean they can’t do things.

“Never assume that they can or cannot – always, always ask the question.

“That’s a really good thing to say with pregnant women. Just because somebody’s pregnant doesn’t mean they can’t do things together with the rest of the group.

“Just be cognizant of the fact that we all have something – whether it is in educational background or accent.

“Accent is an interesting one. A lot of people feel a little bit intimidated to speak because of their their own accent.

“So those are the things that we can be a little bit more cognizant of to make sure that people feel included as well as being included actually.”

The study shows using minority-owned suppliers is the number one way globally that organisations incorporate DE&I into their meeting programs.

Meanwhile, there was also a continued trend for short booking windows with lead times 25% shorter than in 2019.

This is expected to spur innovation and automation for small and simple meeting bookings, the request for proposal process and other repetitive tasks.

Attendee experience technology continues to be in demand as meeting owners aim to meet attendance goals, connect in-person and virtual audiences and deliver unique experiences.

Kaori, head of strategic meetings management for APAC and EMEA, said: “Our organisation has a large business travel unit and they are really ahead with AI. Things like chat, when you open your your travel app, there’s automatically a chat bot where you can just type in questions – where’s my itinerary, what time is my flight, which terminal?

“Those are the things that can be can be answered without going through a human route and it’s become really strong and efficient too.

“In meetings and events, every everything has to be done offline, through emails, voicemails and phone – so we have to get there because we have less people in the industry.”

She added: “Our lead time has become so short since last year – it used to be a lot longer, even in the short lead time maybe a month, maybe six weeks. Now it’s half of that.

“So plan in advance and have a little flexibility built into it. Even if you think in August you want to go to Geneva, don’t be set on that.

“Think about maybe October maybe different months, maybe different destinations because there are a huge, huge cost implications around this.

“This significant increase in in vendor costs. So have visibility and have flexibility and plan early.”

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