Nearly 40 percent of the respondents to a recent survey of business event professionals in the United Kingdom expect September 2020 to be the most significant month when it comes to post COVID-19 recovery.

According to The Business Events Sentiment Survey, created by specialist PR and brand communications agency davies tanner, in partnership with the Business Visits & Events Partnership (BVEP), 38 percent of respondents picked September as the month when they expect to see both enquiries and bookings begin to increase. Twenty-two percent of those who answered were more optimistic, selecting July (12 percent) and August (10 percent) as the months when business would start to rebound. Another 13 percent believe the recovery would not really begin until October.

The survey was created to assist venues, hotels, destinations and other key sector suppliers in planning recovery activity post the COVID-19 pandemic. It was in the field from April 6-14, 2020, prior to further lockdown measures introduced on April 16th, and was completed by 556 business events professionals across the United Kingdom.

In addition to revealing when business event professionals expect to really start on the road to recovery, it showed that respondents across the industry believe that the impact of COVID-19 on the business events industry will be long-lasting. Fifty percent of respondents believe the industry as a whole will not return to any form of normality for at least 12 months, with only 27 percent believing that this could be achieved within nine to 12 months.

Other findings include:

• 61% of respondents reported that at the time of the survey bookings had stopped completely
• 39% reported that they had taken or made booking enquiries in the last month (March 2020) and 15% had done so in recent days
• 38% believe that overall their business will start to pick up in approximately six to nine months
• 32% believe that their business will start to pick up in three to six months
• 50% are optimistic that there will be a full return to normality in their organization
• 38% believe that their business will not return to how it was

CLICK HERE to download a full copy of the report.