COVID-19: an opportunity to review existing grounded theories in event studies

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 has negatively impacted the event industry, while offering it opportunities to reinvent itself. Reviewing some of Getz (2012) futurist thoughts, is part of this reinvention process. This study concludes that: (a) Future Proposition 2 is accurate (b) Future Propositions 1 and 7 need precisions, and as a result has been reformulated as follow: New Future Proposition 1: Planned, live events, both personal and societal in scale and meaning, will always be a prominent feature of civilization, in all societies and cultures. However, in time of pandemics or other crisis, live events might be perturbed, before a staggered return to normal under certain conditions, and strict controls. New Future Proposition 7: As travel and tourism collapse, possibly because of the cascading effects of global warming, another energy crisis, war terrorism or global pandemics, events will also collapse temporarily, but will remain important globally because they meet fundamental human needs. On top of Getz (2012) future thoughts, this study suggests additional Future Propositions.

Sports events and the COVID-19 pandemic: assessing runners' intentions for future participation in running events – evidence from Greece

“…These measures should be presented and promoted in a simple and understandable way so that they can be understood and implemented by potential event participants. These conclusions are in line with Seraphin's (2020) argument that businesses in tourism and cognate industries, will have to provide evidence of the implementation of satisfactory health and safety measures to convince customers to come back again.…”

“…The use of the private owned vehicle is obviously considered to be much safer than the use of the public transport, which is the only way to go if the race destination is far away from home place. COVID-19 context is offering local businesses opportunities to grow, as it appears that local tourism is going to be more popular than outbound tourism (Seraphin, 2020).…”

“…At the same time, serious concerns arose regarding the resumption of these events, the rules of their conduct but also the intention of the runners to participate in them (Burrows & Flynn, 2020). The sports events' organizers, like every other business in tourism and cognate industries, will have to provide evidence of the implementation of satisfactory health and safety measures to convince customers to come back again (Seraphin, 2020).…”

The good, the bad and the ugly on COVID-19 tourism recovery

“…As in the recent case of the COVID-19, any epidemic outbreaks may promptly reduce the flow of inbound and outbound tourism due to the decision of tourists not visit certain geographic regions or destinations and/or government restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. In such a case, epidemic crises may provoke important shifts in demand for certain destinations as travelers may consciously decide not to get exposed to such crises ( Seraphin, 2020 ). This explains why the perceived risk associated with epidemic outbreaks can affect travelers' behavior and their choices of visiting certain destinations ( Reichel et al, 2007 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ).…”

Diffusing innovation in times of disasters: considerations for event management professionals

“…As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the global economy, and EM in particular, exploring the innovations that are derived in response to this disaster is of great importance for understanding how EM will evolve into the future. According to a systematic review conducted by Seraphin (2020), publications related to COVID-19 and tourism are beginning to take shape across two broad categories, namelynegative impacts of the pandemic and considering the pandemic as an opportunity for the tourism industry (Benjamin, Dillette, & Alderman, 2020). Research focused on the negative impact resultant from COVID-19 highlight struggling local economies, mental health of tourists, destination perceptions and the performance of various tourism enterprises.…”