Convention centres and international conferences are feeling the impact of the global coronavirus outbreak.
The spread of coronavirus or COVID-19, and the fear accompanying it, has forced the cancellation or delay of multiple events in the Asia-Pacific region, including Institute of International Finance’s 2020 Spring Membership Meeting in Beijing, as well as its Australia forum scheduled for Wednesday.
“[The uncertainties surrounding COVID-19] has led us to make the difficult decision to postpone the 2020 IIF Australia Forum scheduled for February 19,” IIF president Tim Adams said in a letter to attendees, obtained by the Australian Financial Review.
“We will find a new date for the forum later in the year when things will have hopefully returned to normal.”
Locally, the International Convention Centre Sydney said it had received “one small cancellation and minimal number of requests to postpone events which we are negotiating”.
“We would like to reassure all visitors and clients that we have undertaken the necessary steps and precautions as recommended by the Australian government Department of Health,” chief executive Geoff Donaghy said, as reported by AFR.
“We are also responding where practical to any extra measures that individual clients may require.”
Formula One’s Chinese Grand Prix has also been postponed, the organisers of the event said.
“As a result of continued health concerns and with the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus as a global health emergency, the FIA and Formula One have taken these measures,” the two organisers said in a statement.
One of the biggest tech events of the year, the Mobile World Congress, has also cancelled its 2020 event in Barcelona due to the spread of COVID-19. The event attracts some 100,000 attendees a year, and marks one of the highest-profile examples of the impact of the virus on the MICE space.
“With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, GSMA has canceled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern, and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event,” GMSMA Limited CEO John Hoffman said in a statement.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 73,332 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed, with 72,528 in China and 804 others around the world.
So far, 1,870 people have died from the virus in China, with three deaths in other nations.
Featured image: iStock/peych_p
