AUSTIN, Texas –  Only days before the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, SXSW made the decision to cancel its conference and festival in Austin, Texas. That decision would preface the cancellation of hundreds of events across the region in the months to come.

COVID-19 still made its way to Austin and with it came job losses as the economy shut down and a public health crisis that has so far impacted thousands and killed more than 250 people locally.

Visit Austin, which helps coordinate events and conferences free of charge to help bring tourism dollars to the city, alone had 339 conferences, meetings, and sporting events cancel as of July 17, not including major events like SXSW and Formula 1 racing. They say that equals $101,000,000 in lost hotel revenue and a total estimated impact of $383,000,000 on the local economy.

And while those numbers may seem large and distant, Visit Austin Executive Vice President Steve Genovesi explains that those losses have a trickle-down impact for the average local.

“If you don’t have that business coming in, then the hotels – and we saw this immediately with the impact of COVID-19— they immediately weren’t able to schedule their employees for future work. It’s a devastating impact when you don’t have those meetings and conventions,” said Genovesi.

How full hotels are also directly impacts how much cash flows into the city budget because of hotel and sales taxes dollars. The more money coming to the city through those avenues can help keep property taxes down, Genovesi says.

In April of 2019, the hotel occupancy rate for Austin was at 82.6 percent, according to numbers provided by Visit Austin. In April of this year, that rate plummeted to 21 percent. Downtown Austin’s business district has fared even worse: in April 2019 the occupancy rate was 86.4 percent and fell to 4.1 percent for the same month this year.

The data also shows that since April, the occupancy rates have begun rising again but they are still nearly half what they were in the previous year.

Conventions and meetings play a large factor in Austin’s hotel occupancy rates because they often times fill hotel rooms on days when individual tourists just don’t visit. Those individuals tend to come to the city when it’s at its busiest: the weekends.

“Conventions provide that vital layer that we need of having a designated meeting that brings people from all over the world for a purpose: to come to Austin for that meeting. It’s an assurance that we have a great base of rooms and then from there, we have the business travelers, and then leisure, and so forth,” said Genovesi. “That ultimately helps sell out the hotels and provide that—what I would say is the most vital part, which is getting people in town to spend their money with local businesses, and then they leave.”

Looking ahead, though, Genovesi is optimistic that the hotel and convention industry will soon recover in Austin.

“I think between the corporate business that will hopefully come back and the association side, I think we’ll recover and perhaps more quickly than some other destinations because we do a great job,” he said.

While most conventions and meetings Visit Austin helped coordinate are canceled through mid-October, the organization says it still has a lot of interest in scheduling for next year through 2025.

“Also we have the groups that booked in ’20 that are having discussions about postponing into a future year with us, which we are very happy to see versus just a full out cancellation,” said Genovesi. “Whenever a group – even if it is just for 26 or 27 [people]– we want to see them actually come meet in Austin.”

Need Sparks Innovation

Rescheduling is just one way conventions are navigating COVID-19. Others, like the Austin chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), are choosing to go virtual out of necessity.

Every year, AIA Austin hosts its summer conference, a two-day event where regional architects gather in the capital city to learn and network.

Organizers spent much of this last winter revamping and rebranding the conference. It was supposed to be held at the AT&T Center for the first time in August. Then spring came, and with it, COVID-19.

“There is no way we can have 350 people in a convention center,” explained AIA Austin Executive Director Ingrid Spencer.

But canceling the conference wasn’t an option. In Texas, architects are required to have 12 credit hours of continuing education a year; AIA requires their members to have 18.

Spencer says conferences like theirs are the main resource local architects have for completing those requirements. Many of the panels held during the conference count for credits and without them some architects could be left with limited options.

That’s why organizers decided they had to take their conference virtual this year, something they've never done before.

Spencer, her team, and other AIA chapters nationwide have since spent their recent days researching how to make virtual conferences not only happen, but how to make them successful and engaging to attendees.

The two main factors Spencer was looking for in a virtual hosting platform: customization and design. Customization because the conference managed to keep estimated 75 percent of their sponsors and they need to be able to fulfill those obligations. Design because, “It’s got to look good.”

At the end of the day, Spencer explained architects are focused on design and their conference, which for the first time is actually titled the Design Excellence Conference, needed to match that focus.

The virtual conference is August 19-21 so Spencer and her team are now in the final prep stages before they will find out if their mission was successful.

No matter how this year’s conferences plays out, Spencer believes the virtual elements they’re implementing won’t go away even when they’re meeting again in person. The pandemic may have forced them to go virtual but she believes it’s something they should have been working on long before they were ultimately forced to.

Over the last few months, her organization has hosted a several small virtual events that ended up being heavily attended, not just by local architects, but by people from across the globe. Spencer says there is an opportunity with virtual meetings to include people who live in areas that may not have a dedicated conference.

But despite the silver linings that come with going virtual, Spencer says her organization will one day be back in person.

“We will never stop meeting in person when it’s safe to do that,” she said.