Although the true extent of the economic backlash from the Coronavirus outbreak is still hard to determine, the impact on the Hospitality and service industries has been devastating.

Businesses have seen losses of millions in just a few weeks.

During the current Corona virus crisis, I have been keeping in touch with venues and hotels on a regular basis on behalf of our clients and have found that with cancellations coming in thick and fast, it has been a very trying time for conference venues, and it’s a fine balancing act to attempt to recover cancellation fees whilst being as accommodating as is possible with client requests to move their conferences, meetings and events to later in the year.

With cancellations for events in March before the new strict measures were enforced, venues in some cases were charging 100% cancellation fees as per their terms and conditions, however as time has gone on the majority have taken a longer term view and really tried to soften the blow for their regular clients by offering for example a 50% cxl fee with 50% credit towards their next event ,and others have offered to move the event to a future date with no charge at all.

Most have told me that they are looking at each case individually and in most cases have been able to offer alternative dates in the Autumn and Q1 in 2021.

Availability is already limited from September -December though, with some venues holding space on 3^rd option for clients on some key dates.

Clients who wish to postpone events are being advised to come back  with new dates ASAP otherwise their venue choices will be limited!