The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Development and Regional Integration of International Meeting

Abstract

With the continuous development of human society, international meetings have increasingly become an important form of interaction and contact between countries around the world, and occupy a more and more prominent position in the international community. However, with the COVID-19 epidemic, the international meetings industry is in trouble. This paper empirically studies the impact of COVID-19 on the international meetings industry worldwide through a report published by CIMERT. Among the five globe regions, COVID-19 was found to have the greatest impact in Asia, followed by Africa, with Europe, North America and Latin America being the least affected. It was also found that, based on attendance, medium-sized meetings were the most affected followed by large meetings. The small and super large meetings, however, were the least affected. Finally, beneficial suggestions are made on how the meetings industry should develop in the future.