International meetings held by associations and organizations listed in the Yearbook of International Organizations are showing clear signs of recovery as the world adapts to the current phase of COVID-19’s spread throughout the world.
The data for 2020, 2021, and 2022 in the chart below display this trend.
While UIA’s data for these three years will continue to increase in quantity, we are also seeing some clear trends about meetings which have had to be cancelled or postponed and those which are held in a hybrid format compared with those held solely online.
To examine these points further, the UIA is again undertaking a large-scale survey of transnational associations in UIA Survey on International Meeting Issues 2023 which will be released in the fourth quarter of 2023. For more information see: https://uia.org/publications/meetings-survey
International association life depends on the ability of people to meet, to exchange ideas, to find inspiration from shared experience, an ability which has been tested in an exceptionally disruptive manner by the COVID-19 pandemic. Facility of travel is not experienced in the same way by all would-be participants in congresses: whereas some have difficulty in making time for all they might wish to attend, others find it hard to raise funds to reach just one or two international meetings. But suddenly to find that means of transport are completely out of action, venues and halls are locked and barred, and regular events planned years ahead have been cancelled – or at best postponed indefinitely – has been a shock and major impact.
The reaction of those who organize the meetings and others who offer the wherewithal to hold the events has also been extraordinary, far beyond ordinary. Annual meetings whose format has hardly changed in decades have rapidly mastered technology which has made them virtual or even hybrid. The notion of conferences taking place partly with people present in the room but partly with participants intervening from elsewhere in the world and appearing on a screen is a science-fiction dream which has suddenly become normality. Some organizations have divided some of their activities into regional chapters, and provided smaller on-line gatherings welcomed with enthusiasm by members whose resources are limited but whose ideas and contribution are not limited at all.
And yet at the same time people have realised that they remain very keen to be together and to meet in person, so some conferences have increased in participation numbers as they have been able to be restored to physical presence. The developments in technical knowledge, programmes, facilities and flexibility, taken with the stimulus of networking with old acquaintances while encountering new contacts, all promise well for the future of the world of association meetings of every kind.
For more information on the 64th edition of the International Meetings Statistics Report and to order your copy, go to: https://uia.org/publications/meetings-stats
Joel Fischer has been part of the UIA’s editorial and Secretariat staff since 1996. He is co-editor of the Yearbook of International Organizations and the International Congress Calendar
Issue #4 – September 2023