(A socially distanced meeting at Riverhouse on the Deschutes | Photo courtesy of Riverhouse on the Deschutes)
When Cascade Business News’ annual Meeting Guide edition published last year on March 4, little did we know that the world was on the eve of being turned upside-down. With 2020 still in its first quarter of life, Central Oregon was abuzz with tourism; meetings and conventions filled the calendars of event planners and engaged couples were happily planning their big days, with nary a thought about this new thing we were beginning to hear about: coronavirus.
This year’s meeting guide overview story will read quite differently from last year’s… and all the years before that. Perhaps no industry has been so severely affected by COVID than that of hospitality. With travel restrictions in place and social-distancing requirements firmly etched into our lives, plans for gatherings a year ago were literally cancelled almost overnight. And yet, Central Oregon is resilient. Hotel owners and those working in hospitality did not give up. Though tourism surely took a huge hit here and elsewhere, as spring approaches, there is new life emerging in our region. COVID numbers are down, vaccines are becoming more widespread in availability and hope is blossoming.
“It’s been an interesting year for all businesses; we are no exception. The event industry and conferences have been as hard hit as just about anyone,” says Geoff Hinds, director of Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center. “As we and any other facility will attest, the lack of ability to meet in person and travel has had a huge impact, which is completely understandable. It made 2020 a challenging year, but we’re hopefully through the roughest stretch, and looking into 2021 and beyond with hope and anticipation.” He continues, “In looking back, we had to cancel 209 unique events from March 12 of last year through Friday, February 19 of this year. That’s 73 percent of our event bookings. That doesn’t mean we weren’t able to do some events, but the majority were reduced in size, or focused on emergency response.”
Hinds says that one of the things that the Fair and Expo team likes to highlight is what they were able to accomplish in 2020 despite the challenges, including the center serving as host site for emergency response activities. “It really speaks to the commitment of our community to create a facility like we have. It’s one of the largest facilities of this type in the nation, and has the size and flexibility to respond to emergencies like the fires. It served as a shelter and an incident command center, while also serving as host to other events. Now, we are hosting a mass vaccination clinic while still hosting other smaller events simultaneously.”
When the pandemic first hit last March, many organizations and companies quickly responded and changed the way they do business practically overnight. “At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Visit Bend was one of the first destination marketing organizations in the country to immediately suspend all outbound marketing,” says Tawna Fenske, PR & Communications manager of Visit Bend, an economic development organization dedicated to creating a mix of marketing, sales and service programs to produce a positive economic impact of visitor and convention spending in Bend. “Because Bend has spent most of the past 11 months operating under travel advisory restrictions established by either the City of Bend, the State of Oregon or both, we have not been actively promoting travel to Bend during the pandemic. We’ve instead channeled our resources toward initiatives like our highly trafficked COVID information page, issues around sustainability and content urging future visitors and locals to support Bend businesses.”
At the Riverhouse on the Deschutes, which can accommodate and feed as many as 1,600 people and has more than 40,000 square feet of flexible meeting space, has also been following the state COVID-19 restrictions regarding meetings and conventions, which prohibited meetings up until February 12 of this year. “Now that Deschutes County has moved into High Risk, meetings can be held for groups of up to 50 people,” says Erick Trachsel, director of sales and marketing for Riverhouse, which is the largest event space in Bend and one of the largest in the state that is privately held. “We are starting to see small meetings start up again, but the recovery has been slow up to this point. The few meetings we have held have all been for under ten people.”
At the Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center, a safety plan was created early on in conjunction with Deschutes County Health. “This forced us to start thinking about what would be necessary to return to normalcy as soon as possible. That plan allowed us to be able to return to the production of some events last year and created a format for us to follow. It gave our team some benchmarks to follow,” says Hind. “Our team is proud to be an industry leader in the Northwest. The plan is a document that continues to evolve as we research and learn more about COVID and its impacts, and in keeping our team, our community and our guests safe.”
Hinds says that looking into 2021, he is hopeful that the return to normal, or the new normal, is on the horizon, and that the Expo Center will be able to get back into its traditional activities. “Through this point, our bookings are doing well. We were ambitious about working with our partners through the forced shutdown to be as prepared as possible in order to be able to safely and responsibly open our doors as quickly as possible. We’ve got a couple of larger new activities we are hopeful we can bring to completion this year, some as early as this springtime and into summer and fall. We continue to have more and larger events on the calendar. The large majority are either completely outside or mostly outside, because we have the ability to produce these with the restrictions that are in place.” He adds, “Safety, and doing these events responsibly, is our focus. We continue to look to see if there is a way to do each individual activity in a safe manner, and then if there is a financially viable way to do so. We are cautiously optimistic about the county fair; as one of the largest events onsite in the state, there are unique challenges in getting that many people together at one time, even as far down the road as July or August.”
As the pandemic has dragged on, event planners and site hosts have had time to create plans to implement when the restrictions are lifted. As a result, when that time comes, schedules will likely fill up quickly and the return to traditional bookings will likely be fast and furious.
“We are starting to see optimism about our meetings and conventions scheduled later in the year,” says Trachsel. “Most are hopeful that as the year progresses and the number of case counts continue to go down, we will be able to host their meetings and conventions within the current COVID-19 guidelines at the time of their event.” He adds, “We are providing clients with options, whether it is reducing the size of their meeting so that their group falls within the allowable capacity or doing a hybrid meeting where some people attend in person and the rest of the group attend via a video conferencing platform.”
Meanwhile, as we all await that time, the local marketing organizations and event planners have turned to creative virtual gatherings to help keep interest in our region alive. “Visit Central Oregon worked with Travel Oregon to bring a virtual media event to life at Black Butte Ranch in January of 2021. In place of a hosted trip, ten media were invited to attend an exclusive virtual media event that featured partners from around the region including Sparrow Bakery, Wild Ride Brewing, Sisters Meat and Smokehouse and several others,” says Katie Johnson, communications manager of Visit Central Oregon. “The media were sent packages containing items like shortbread cookies, jerky samples and cans of beer to be enjoyed as they followed along during the event. This allowed for our partners to walk the media through tastings, how to best enjoy the product and background on the organizations. While we wait for hosted media trips to return to Central Oregon, this event served as a formal invitation for a hosted visit.”
Virtual meetings have also been successful at the Riverhouse. “So far, our virtual meetings that have taken place at our hotel have been via Zoom. We work with a talented team of local professionals who have state-of-the-art streaming equipment to ensure our clients’ meetings go as smoothly as possible,” says Trachsel. “Overall, I think that people are excited to get back to meeting in person as long as we are following all of the COVID-19 guidelines in order to keep our staff and attendees safe. Our event staff members have not returned back to work yet, but the plan is to bring them back as soon as we begin to see meeting levels increase.”
Fenske adds, “We’re preparing advertising and marketing campaigns to be deployed when it’s safe and responsible to encourage travel again. Just as it was coming out of the last recession, we anticipate tourism to be a key driver for Bend’s economic recovery following the pandemic. Visit Bend will be ready when that time comes.”
expo.deschutes.org • visitcentraloregon.com • visitbend.com • riverhouse.com
