This chapter explores learning and teaching experiences in virtual event management. In the face of the corona virus pandemic, the event industry has had to adapt and adjust to survive. One of the ways in which this was done was through the production of virtual events. Likewise, universities preparing graduates for work in event management jobs had to quickly adapt to the changes taking place in industry and turn all ‘live event' assessments into virtual event assessments to ensure graduate employability. This case study addresses the essential skills and knowledge required by graduates to work in virtual event management. It provides commentary on best practices in learning and teaching and the experience of a tutor and students making a quick shift from a face-to-face event assessment to a virtual event assessment at a post-1992 university in the UK. The chapter concludes looking at some of the challenges and opportunities associated with teaching virtual event management in an emergency remote teaching scenario.
TopIntroduction
Coronavirus has rocked the tourism and hospitality industry with consequences never before experienced. Universities, like several industries and businesses, were impacted negatively and had to develop strategies of crisis management and resilience (Krishnamurthy, 2020). Students were affected with learning and teaching activities suddenly moved online for extended periods of time. Field trips and placements were cancelled and practical assessments had to be replaced by written ones. The employability agenda of most universities was thwarted by the realisation that many jobs graduates were being prepared for would be extinct due to the corona virus pandemic.
The corona virus bought about the fastest reallocation of labour since World War II. In response to the pandemic, displaced workers integrated into other industries or sectors that urgently needed labour (Sealy, 2020). In the UK we have seen a boom in the health sector which attracted workers from hospitality and other customer service-oriented jobs at the height of the pandemic. Airline cabin crew, whose customer service, health and safety, medical and first-aid training are transferable, migrated into the health care sector (Barrero, Bloom & Davis, 2020). The World Economic Forum (2020) job report project that job destruction will most likely be replaced by short-term job creation in the green economy. They claim that jobs in artificial intelligence (AI) and new roles in engineering, cloud computing and product development will emerge. The job report also emphasised that emerging professions will continue to reflect the importance of roles in marketing, sales and content production. Early in the pandemic these trends were already evident in the events management profession with the shift from face-to-face to virtual events and subsequently hybrid events.
During the height of the pandemic and the consequent lockdowns, the events sector has had to find new and innovative ways to engage with audiences through the application of technological communications software to produce events online (Seraphin, 2020). Zoom for instance, was downloaded 2.13 million times around the world on 23 March, 2020 (Neate, 2020) to facilitate ‘virtual’ events. Virtual events are events that are presented digitally on internet platforms such as webcasting (streaming) (Sox, Crews & Kline, 2014). Some of the most common platforms are Teams, Zoom and YouTube. Seraphin (2020) notes that the virtual events market is worth US$18.6 billion and provided the answer to the restrictions placed on travel and social distancing. Some events, such as the Miss USA 2020 Pageant, was filmed in a studio and then streamed to audiences via a ‘pay per view’ platform on the internet and on television. Other events such as the Sustainable Tourism Conference, which was scheduled for Kathmandu and other academic conferences, were streamed ‘live’ in real-time through various platforms. It soon became very clear that event graduates would need to be digitally literate and the development of these and other transferable skills would be crucial for new and emerging roles.
As the contours of the business world changed, event management educators have had to change the way they delivered courses and the content of courses. Students who were planning careers in events found themselves preparing for an industry that had suddenly shifted to virtual delivery with a sudden stream of jobs emerging in virtual events. Despite the fast pace of change, universities were still expected to deliver courses that would assist graduates in adapting and adjusting to the new labour market and with the requisite skills necessary to function in this new 4th industrial revolution (Avgeli, Bakir, Dahlan & Wickens, 2021).