ECM Members Come Together to Overtake the Coronavirus Crisis

ECM Members come together to overtake the Crisis. The outbreak of Covid-19 strongly encourages our industry to deal with new challenges and emergencies worldwide. In this unprecedented situation sustainability, collaboration and innovation become even more crucial. ECM has kept up the conversation to respond to its member’s needs.

Climate change, society transformation, unprecedented sanitary crises, economic progress: today the world has put on a burst of speed in changes. And all of this has been stopped through the Covid-19 epidemic. This crisis is now the opportunity to unlock barriers, initiate innovation and collaborate. In this complex scenario, talking of sustainability becomes more and more important since we are living through the greatest sustainability revolution ever: economic, social, environmental and of course a travel revolution.

This crisis is now the opportunity to unlock barriers, initiate innovation and collaborate.

Making sustainable choices can be easily embedded into your everyday life. A concrete example is ECM’s member Vienna, which recently set up a Visitor Economy Strategy 2025. The starting point of this new strategy is the question “what can visitors do for Vienna?”. How can we help to sustain long-term success and help as many different stakeholders to participate in it as possible? The key: designing a sustainable visitor economy.

Another initiative can be found in Helsinki who set up “Think Sustainably“, a project which combine sustainable services, experiences and transportation into one easy-to-use service on MyHelsinki.fi pulling together restaurants, bars, venues, shops, hotels, etc.

As ECM, we believe, that the need for strategic destination management is greater than ever before. During crises and emergencies, DMOs have a key role to play in coordinating and supporting stakeholders, driving the change. The DMO of tomorrow must help ensure sustainable growth and actively work the visitor economy to make a positive impact. It is up to DMOs to demonstrate that the visitor economy can benefit the destinations’ social inclusion, cultural repertoire and local communities. In this new role, Convention Bureaux are instrumental for strategic city management, acting both as agenda-setter, project initiator and facilitator.

As ECM, we believe, that the need for strategic destination management is greater than ever before.

However, Covid-19 emergency situation sets us against new unknown challenges, from sanitary tensions to societal isolation, from economic difficulties to unemployment issues. In this uncertain panorama, DMO’s must keep faith and stay relevant. From the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, ECM has collected information to get a European perspective on how DMOs and, local and national governments are managing the crisis.

Thanks to our internal knowledge and partners, we are providing crucial support to our members. In March, our Knowledge Partner, “FowardKeys” explained us in an interactive webinar what effect Coronavirus has had on the Chinese outbound market. Also, our partner “Tourism Economics” invited all our members to join a dedicated presentation on Coronavirus tourism impacts worldwide. These webinars mong others show us that Covid-19 was spreading more widely and rapidly than expected, that all major destinations will be affected across Europe and that the virus will deeply alter our way to see travel and tourism in the next months.

Similarly, ECM continuously provides important tools to achieve a common and mutual knowledge on the Covid-19 crisis through collaborative dashboard to share members situation, data & any other useful information. This tool affirms the great teamwork of our members who shared impacts, measures but also innovative initiatives. All these tools show how cities are the first impacted by the crisis and DMOs are in the first line by nature of their activity. ECM provided also regular press releases and articles based on researches and studies. It is crucial to stay positive and believe in a total full recovery in the months to come. The first step after this recovery will be focused on “staycation”, reorganizing local business and domestic travel

ECM provided also regular press releases and articles based on researches and studies. It is crucial to stay positive and believe in a total full recovery in the months to come.

We are aware of the complexity of this unparalleled crisis. But this crisis showed us something rare and beautiful: solidarity. Sharing, collaboration and solidarity are keys to overtake this emergency. Maybe teaching us how to do things differently, think collectively and rely on each other.

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ECM Members come together to overtake the Crisis