Critical Investigation of Event Management Industry

Critical Investigation of Event Management Industry

Executive Summary

The primary purpose of the report is to highlight current structural trends and conditions related to the event management industry. The report will broadly talk about six to seven primary areas, which affect the event management industry on a broad basis. Tourism and climatic change will be highlighted as significant factors contributing to the development of the event management industry. Artificial intelligence coupled with advancement in technology can be a prolific boost up to the event management industry. The contemporary issues in the labour market can be another element, which affect event management industry. Ageing population and shift in demography can also be a factor affecting event management industry. Sharing economy also contributes positively to the progress of event management and finally the quality of life can also impact the event management industry.

Table of content

Introduction

The report will centralise on a critical examination of the event management Industry. In this context, the contribution of this industry will be judged on tourism sector and the way it can bring about climatic change. The importance of artificial intelligence will be searched out in this kind of industry and the future prospect will also be investigated with the application of artificial intelligence. Further, the labour market will be focussed through the citation of global examples. The contemporary issues prevailing in the labour market will be taken into consideration in the light of the event management industry. Ageing population will be defined along with the shift in demography of the population with respect to event management industry. Finally, impact of sharing economy will be judged on the basis of event industry and quality of life will be evaluated through the impacts of event management industry.

Discussion

Critical evaluation of event industry and its contribution to tourism and climatic change

Any event industry is engaged with understanding of the behaviour of audience in order to cultivate their emotional excitement. Through the analysis of behaviour, the event industry organises events that will involve gathering of people at a pre-determined time and place (Draper et al. 2018, January).The main purpose behind the conduction of an event can be increase in the profitability of a business, entertainment of customers, or community causes. The most popular events can be conference, exhibition, corporate event, music or art performance, sports or product launch.

The management of events can be done both at the local as well as global level. Tourism can be regarded as the set of activities that are concerned with travelling new places and having new experiences worldwide. Apparently, tourism might seem to have a different notion than event management. However, both the sectors can be closely connected with each other. Event management can have four kinds of impacts on tourism industry that is socio-cultural impacts, political impacts, economic impacts, and environmental impacts (Lovati et al. 2016).The primitive gathering of people have now changed drastically into sophisticated events, which have attracted many tourists at various spots. Events can facilitate or mitigate political situations, which can attract more tourists in such places. Through the development of global events such as Olympic Games, the tourism of the economy can be boosted. Due to various environmental issues, the consumer needs have changed as there is a growing need for alternative energies and environmental protection. This has further increased the demand for specific range of events and tourism.

Event management industry is a prospective sector for the future economy, with a robust economic force and a considerable projected growth. In US, the event management industry contributes about $115 million to the GDP of the nation. Similarly, in UK the sector accounts to worth 4.3bn pounds. Climatic change is immensely associated with the event industry (Sheets and O’Halloran, 2017). In a negative way, events can lead to increase in pollution through generation of large amounts of carbon dioxide in the air. This has affected the climate of a particular place. In order to curb down this effect, many carbon neutral events have been launched for reducing the carbon emission, while supporting the green project initiatives all around the world. The main aim behind these events is to set a standard for carbon neutrality within the industry.

Role of artificial intelligence within the event industry

In any event industry, the artificial intelligence provides innovative solutions for interacting with customers and organising suitable events catering to their demands. The data and information collected through the market research can be suitably analysed through artificial intelligence, which saves time and effort of the organisers. The organisers can identify trends in the population and make changes for optimising their efforts (Zhou, 2017, June).Through sophisticated and targeted marketing, the event managers can get right people for their events as their marketing techniques are boosted through artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence can also revolutionise event industry by helping them in providing customised experience to the customers.

Another way by which artificial intelligence has stimulated advancements in event industry can be through simulation of conversation with the customers through a combination of human touch as well as robotic experiences. Different applications like Chatbots, has given this platform to the marketers for exhibiting such a conversation technique. Another important artificial intelligence tool used by the event managers is facial recognition (Sample et al. 2019, October).This tool helps in restricting and limiting a large number of people, while analysing the authenticity of personal information provided by them. Through face recognition tools, the booths fitted at the entry point can check and scan the attendees face and validate the information accordingly.

Artificial intelligence is also likely to support the management of event industry in the upcoming days. Artificial intelligence can be implemented at low cost in future days. Many applications such as chatbots have been very costly till date, which has hindered their utility among the event managers (Vannucci and Colla, 2019).  However, due to recent upgrade, these applications are ready to be incorporated in a pocket-friendly way by the planners. Many other applications are yet to be launched that will ease the process of event management with a limited budget. Another importance of artificial intelligence in the event industry can be vast options of event formats even for a niche market.

In future days, artificial intelligence can be used for automation of many important processes of the event planners. In any event planning system, the planners are required to carry out various activities such as connecting with vendors, searching out event venues and consult a variety of sources through sending of emails (Lin et al. 2019).This can be a laborious task for the planners as this requires a lot of time and effort. Artificial intelligence can help in reducing these tasks through the automation of many of these processes. The varied applications can also provide support to the event planners for understanding the needs and demands of the customers through group chat sessions.

Critical examination of the contemporary issues of labour market

In the field of labour market, many contemporary issues have been prevalent since ages. Many theorists and researchers have conducted many theoretical and empirical works reflecting on the labour market. According to a journal published by Muscatelli and Hunter, the full employment achievements have shifted backwards during 1960s, which has paved way for the rise of old problems related to shortage of jobs for the workers and inequality in the labour market (Mallen and Adams, 2017). After the cropping up of these old problems, there has been emergence of new kinds of issues such as wage cut-off and arising demands of the trade unions. It has been expected that the increased human capital input, progress of new data and techniques and advancement in technology would be solutions to these issues.

However, in most of the countries including Britain and Europe, unemployment still remained a serious issue. Since 2011, the global employment growth has become stable at around 1.4% due to a massive increase in the proportion of wages and salaries of the workers (Van Niekerk, 2017). In many advanced economies like UK and United States, most of the workers who were previously working in enterprises are recently working for their own account.

The event industry is faced with many kinds of labour issues due to the current trends and factors impacting the industry. The events industry is extremely diverse and segmented. Citing examples from most of the business events, it can be argued that workforce has four general classifications, such as corporate in-house organisers, not-for-profit associations for organising events, agencies of event management and entrepreneurs (Camilleri, 2018).  From many kinds of business events it has been observed that skill gaps can be one of the labour issues persisting in this field. Most of the labours have lack of skills in people management, strategy formulation and supplier management. Even these labour have lack of understanding of basic protocols related to health, safety and sustainability.

Another labour issues concerning the event management industry is low turnover of labours as the vacancies are easy to fill when the employers offer routes of training and progression. In order to mitigate these issues, the companies have introduced informal training and induction programs for the employees (Backman, 2018).There is lack of professional qualifications among the employees, which might also pose a threat to the business. Other important skill gaps observed in this field are sales skills, customer services, presentation skills and many other types of skill gaps.

Other significant labour issues related to event industry are illicit actions taken by the workers when he works against the receipt of his payment. Other issues can be related to the collective bargaining methods of the labour unions and unfair labour practices. Sometimes, issues can arise when the labour complain against the health and safety of the workplace (Furunes and Mkono, 2019). Issues can also crop up due to holiday structure of the labours. This also includes minimum wage, which should be given to the employees. Adequate leaves, working hours, unfair dismissals, layoff procedures and severance pay and many other factors can also be included under this segment.

Examination of ageing population and response to demographic shift

Ageing population can be defined as the rising age of the average population due to longer life expectancies of the people as well as their lower birth-rates. This situation mainly occurs when there is a constant change in the age composition of a population and an increase in the elderly people within the population (Lee et al. 2018). It has been a trend in the developed countries that most of the people in the populated are aged people, showing high rate of population ageing, while in developing countries the trend has emerged at later days.

The two effects of the demography are reported to have direct impact on the ageing of the population. These two demographic effects are increasing lifespan and decline in the fertility of the population (Miller, 2016).  Due to increase in lifespan, the average age of the population rises up and consequently increases the average age of the population. Due to decline in fertility rate, the number of babies gets reduced and as a result, the number of younger people also reduces. Through these two crucial factors, the average age demographics can be analysed, which is crucial to every business including the event management.

Considering the basic demographics of the population, the event planners segregate them into a unique segment. The companies look at the common attributes of the potential attendees such as their age, gender, marital status and many other factors. Some of the event organisers combine several attributes together of the targeted attendee and name the group as target persona (Sundararajan, 2016).The demographical segments are formed through analysis of previous years’ data and information. The organisers also create random questions for collecting personal information of the attendees. Through these way, the event organisers plan their events based on the demographic details of the customers.

The event management companies can deal with the population ageing issue in many ways. The companies can recruit some of the elderly people for office works, which might be valuable for the organisations in gaining knowledge and skills from the experienced people (Wirtz et al. 2019). Another way is to segment these elderly group into a different segment of demographics and benefit them through conduction of special events such that they can feel appreciated and recognised. Information required for the conduction of these special events can be collected through questionnaires that will involve extraction of personal information related to the choices and preferences of the individuals.

Critical examination of sharing economy and its impacts on event industry

A sharing economy is a type of economic model, which facilitates access of goods and services by a community-based online platform. The model is based on a peer-to-peer activity where all the amenities are shared among all the members of a particular community. Many emerging overarching theories have been proposed by the researchers such as complexity theory, social exchange theory, norm activation and value co-creation (Tūtlys et al. 2019). All these theories have been governed by many factors such as trust, reputation, disruptive behaviour, choice and segmentation, personality satisfaction and pricing strategies. All these theories have major implications in varied industries including the event management industry.

Complexity theory can be regarded as the study of the complexity of a setting. The complex systems are generally taken into account while discussing this theory. This theory can be associated with sharing economy as the behaviour of the communities interacting within the social setting can be very complex in nature. Social exchange theory is based on sociological and psychological understanding between two parties during an ongoing interaction. The risks and benefits associated with this interaction can be quantitatively expressed (Savković, 2017).This is also a very important theory guiding sharing economy as the interaction between communities should be understood for realising the associated risks and benefits of the system. Similarly, the norm activation model talks about the anticipated emotions that guide the personal norms of individuals. Value co-creation talks about formulation of business strategy through customer experience and the interactive relationships prevalent among the customers.

Sharing economy opens up many kinds of opportunities for people to provide services according to the demands of the customers. The economy can be a great tool for the event industry as most of event management industries work based on different projects (Tian and Ji, 2017). Due to the shared economy, people and resources can be shared and connected between a large number of people. Many event planners have observed that there has been a gap in the market and the most of the people are interested in using a platform for shared economy, through exchange of resources. Having a sharing economy can be excellent business models, which are quite advanced and effective than the traditional models. Sharing economy provides a platform to the event management business for targeting those audiences who are in need of the services. As a result, there is no lock-in contracts or deal holdings between the parties.

Through the presence of a shared economy, many elements of an event can be organised on a shared basis such as shared event venues, shared mobility, powered knowledge of the crowd, shared living and crowd-funded events (Taylor, 2018). Through these options, the infrastructure, transportation, knowledge, accommodation and funding can be shared among the customers and the overall cost of the event manager will get reduced due to these benefits. Along with all these elements, the values, customers and culture of the people are also exchanged among themselves, which enrich their event experiences.

Critical examination of the impacts of event industry on Quality of life

Quality of life can be defined as the various dimensions that constitute a human life. The metric is used for benchmarking a standard of level that is expected by individuals for having a good life. It can be termed as a general well-being of people, which takes into account both the positive as well as negative aspects of human life. Looking towards a theoretical framework of quality of life, Maslow’s law can be suitably defined that relates to psychology of self-actualisation (Jardine et al. 2017). Through this theory of self-actualisation, people tend to take more responsibility of their own life, while becoming enriched with good qualities. These good qualities make the individuals free, powerful, happy and healthy.

Many events have emerged in today’s society and business environment that help in inculcating a sense of social value and cultural belonging among the communities. The events provide perceived promises of economic benefits, the events have embodied a sense cultural heritage among the people of the communities (Agarwal et al. 2019). In the middle of 1900s the mass tourism dramatically increased the potential of events in most localities and has corresponded to social and economic development. In a strategic event planning, it is necessary to access in-depth information regarding the people such that events could be organised appropriately. Through this process, the planners can recognise the social impacts associated with the events.

Through different kinds of festivals, the event planners can tap the religious and cultural segments of the society in order to understand their happiness and well-being. Through many evidences, it has been proved that positive events can enhance the mental health of the customers and realise psychic advancements in their mentalities (Das Nair, 2019). Many other evidences have found out that seven different mental perspectives of people have been proportional to events, that is, community benefits, cultural benefits, educational benefits, loyalty, satisfaction, event attendance and concerns towards quality of life.

Many other evidences have suggested that events can also have adverse effects on communities. Many negative socio-cultural impacts of the various events can be found out. First of all, the communities stated that events can create an increase in traffic and jams. Events can also increase congestion and overcrowding in different kinds of public transports (Lacey et al. 2019). Due to conduction of an event, there could be participants from all around the world that include both local communities and foreign visitors. In such cases, accommodation creates a major problem and sometimes the privacy of the individuals might also be hampered due to excessive crowds in places.

Along with this, many other people believe that events can create a lot of disturbing noises in many places. Consequently, this can also disturb the normal routines of the local communities. As many people gather from foreign places, there is excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs, which might not be favourable to the local people. Overcrowding also leads enhances the rate of crime among the participants. Due to presence of all these negative factors, the quality of life of the people ultimately deteriorates as a result of negative events.

Conclusion

From the above report, it can be concluded that event management industry has a prospective growth in the current phenomenon and can be widely affected both positively and negatively by many kinds of factors in the surrounding environment. It has immense contribution towards tourism and change in climatic structure. Artificial intelligence plays a major role in the development of this industry. Many other factors have a direct or indirect relationship with event management industry. These factors are labour market, ageing population, sharing economy and quality of life. Despite all the negativities, the industry continues to grow at a faster pace in the future days of the economy.

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