Online or in person? Corporate Approach in Digitalisation and Future Trends of the Fairs and Conference Market

This paper aims to present and analyse the digitalisation of the visitor economy in Hungary and to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the spread of digital services in the meetings and exhibitions industry.Drawing on recent international academic research, we explore how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the digitalisation of the global market of meetings, conferences and exhibitions in our globalised world between 2020 and 2024.The central research question investigates whether digitalisation accelerated as a result of the demand shock experienced in a specific sector of the visitor economy due to pandemic-related restrictions.Digital solutions were already present in the business conference and fairs segment.We aim to substantiate whether these tools represented a breakthrough during and after the pandemic and in the context of corporate sustainability visions.The research methodology combines an academic literature review, data analysis, and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the Hungarian conference and fairs market to gain insights into digitalisation trends and future perspectives.The findings of the study show that service providers introduced digital services to overcome the barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic and maintained them after the crisis successfully.Digitalisation in the event industry contributes to the competitiveness of service providers.For future research, we propose examining the preferences of Hungarian companies regarding participation in physical versus virtual business events and exhibitions, and evaluating whether the Hungarian Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) industry can meet these expectations.