This Copenhagen Risk Assessment white paper has been developed at the initiative of Copenhagen Convention Bureau, due to the pressing need to increase the awareness and knowledge of risk management and risk sharing in the business events industry.
Consultations and an online survey were conducted during spring 2023 to uncover challenges and explore potential opportunities for change.
The white paper highlights some burning issues the business events industry is facing around risk and explores how we propose to mitigate and share risk. The paper focuses on three risk pillars – strategic, financial, and operational – which are key parts of the business events industry.
We identify some global megatrends that are leading to uncertain long term business commitments from buyers around health, safety, Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), cyber security and geopolitical instability.
We also focus on the current risk of changing consumer behaviour, including the importance of responses from buyers in the business events industry (associations, corporates, and PCOs) as their delegates’ behaviours change.
These behaviour changes have resulted in the business to business (B2B) supply chain being impacted and is influencing the selection of destinations and suppliers for business events. Buyers are more cautious than ever as fluctuating delegate attendance impacts all parties for accuracy of revenue and service delivery.
The reliance on partnerships and contracts has been tested to its fullest during the COVID-19 pandemic. Contractual flexibility is currently the single biggest pain point for both buyers and suppliers, and although tension is building, both parties have the same competing risks with opposing solutions. As a result, this is a prime opportunity to identify ways we can collaborate to share risk, and we’ve outlined some thought starters in this paper.