The Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) has issued a statement confirming that it is proceeding with Incentive Summit Europe in Davos, Switzerland (March 26-29) and Incentive Summit Americas in Beaver Creek, Colorado (April 2-5).

“Regrettably, some media sources have published false or misleading data relative to Covid-19, giving rise to fear and panic and leading to the cancellation of meetings, incentive travel experiences and events in locations where the risk of transmission of the virus is negligible or zero,” stated SITE president Jenn Glynn, CIS, CITP, in a letter to the association’s members. “SITE is uncompromisingly committed to ensuring the health, wellbeing and safety of all attendees at our events. We are in contact with the relevant global and national health authorities and monitoring the evolving situation with respect to Covid-19 in Switzerland and the U.S. on a daily basis. To date, we have received no information that would cause us to cancel or postpone Incentive Summit Europe or Incentive Summit Americas.”

SITE CEO Didier Scaillet, CIS, CITP, added: “SITE events have always taken place with due care for attendee safety and with all of the appropriate emergency preparedness in place. Regarding Incentive Summit Europe, we have evaluated the advice from reputable sources such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and can find no reason to cancel or postpone the event. Therefore, we will go ahead, as planned, with the staging of the Incentive Summit series in Davos and Colorado and look forward to building more successful events around connections, learning and destination discovery.”

Last Friday the Swiss government issued a ban on events of 1,000 attendees or more, which is in effect until March 15th. Barbra Albrecht, head of Switzerland Convention & Incentive Bureau (SCIB), explained that the ban was put in place in order to trace anyone who has come in close contact with infected individuals. “Smaller events, especially if the delegates are known to each other are, therefore, not at risk. We’re 100 percent committed to creating an amazing event with SITE in Davos and look forward to welcoming all the incentive travel professionals currently registered to attend,” she added.