MCC Director of Sales Shares Insights on unique Venues webinar: The roadmap to recovery Series Pt 5: hitting the road and Adjusting Course

Last week, Jill Porter, Director of Sales at Maritime Conference Center, shared her insights as part of the Unique Venues webinar: The Roadmap to Recovery Series Pt. 5: Hitting the Road and Adjusting Course. The panel, hosted by Chuck Salem and Joel Hauff of Unique Venues,  discussed the constantly changing landscape of holding meetings and events across the country as the hospitality industry begins to recover, as well as what it feels like to hit the ground running with meetings and events, adjusting along the way, in a post-pandemic world.

COVID-19 unfortunately continues to dictate the meeting and event planning process, often making it difficult for all to navigate and make decisions. Jill emphasized the need to continuously change policies and protocols, as recently as just a week ago with rise of the Delta variant. She also discussed how MCC developed a COVID-19 Resource Center on our website to keep meeting planners, staff and other guests up to date on the latest information. This, coupled with one-on-one calls and meetings with our planners to address areas of concerns, has allowed MCC to maintain strong partnerships with our clients and assist them to the best of our abilities to ensure their events are safe and successful.

Looking ahead, each of the panelists had varying predications as far as when the industry will truly see stability and full recovery. Jill's thoughts being that professional business activities will ramp-up throughout the year next year (2022), but that the industry won't reach pre-COVID levels of meeting and event business until approximately mid-2023. The panel also discussed what is being seen on the social side of events, as that seems to be rebounding quicker with individuals yearning to gather and celebrate life milestones (i.e. weddings, baby showers, etc.).

Additional webinar panelists included:

• Natalie Thomas, U.S. National Arboretum & D.C. Association of Realtor's 1615 at Dupont Office Space
• Suzanne Shaw, Yale University Conferences & Events
• Diana Frick, The Ranch Events Complex

Click here to watch the full recording of the webinar.