Events & holiday parties bounce back
Jess Levy
Marketing & Communications Manager
Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce
Do you have childhood memories of eating a favorite food? Maybe you remember how you eagerly anticipated getting to spend the day cooking your families recipes with grandma during the holidays? Attending an annual friendsgiving at a nostalgic restaurant? If you stop and think about it, you probably associate some of your favorite foods with community and celebratory memories. Food is a powerful connective tool. We love to use food to mark special occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, baby showers, graduations, family reunions…No matter the culture, the desire to gather for a meal is universal; It connects us all.
Meetings, small and large events, and the seasonal holiday parties have returned after a large pause of uncertainty. Weddings that have been put on hold are in full swing again. Leisure travel has increased where families can reconnect and get together for small group events. With the changing nature of the workforce, more employees are now untethored from the office which increases the rise in remote work travel. Holiday season is just around the corner and now more than ever we seem to crave more comfort. Families, companies, churches, classes, clubs, teams, you name it, are coming back together to make new memories over a shared meal to make up for lost time.
These parties can provide a stable setting to converse, debate, and strengthen our relationships. At this year’s State of the Community, during our Tourism fireside chat, Erin Francis-Cummings, President & CEO, San Francisco based Destination Analysts, mentioned Carlsbad’s ethnically diverse stats. This makes Carlsbad a bountiful place to host a party, with such a wide selection of cuisines and influences that shape the venues across town. Carlsbad is also a unique city in terms of where it’s located in Southern California. Tim Stripe, Co-President and Co-Owner of Grand Pacific Resorts, highlights Carlsbad’s unique accessibility for travelers to drive here, especially for those afraid to fly still. He also mentioned the high safety, and low crime and homeless scores of our city compared to other towns when familes are researching vacations spots. With year round tourism, “Carlsbad is truly a vacation and resort hub.”
We can’t wait for large gatherings to restart. But why? What do we get out of them that’s worth “the risk”? Experts and researchers claim large gatherings provide connection that’s pivotal for our overall health. The experiences gained from a large event may decrease depression, loneliness, and anxiety, and increase one’s meaning, happiness, and calmness.
Besides planning and attending events this season, the impact of attending them can positively linger. Kurt Stocks, President of
LEGOLAND California, speaks similarly about this in paralell to the grand impact tourism provides. Events provide the environment for people to create lifelong memories Kurt points out. Nick Hopkins, professor of social psychology, University of Dundee did a study that showed “even a month after a large event, participants reported feeling more content than similar people who hadn’t attended the event.” Shira Gabriel, an associate professor of psychology at SUNY, University at Buffalo notes such benefits, too. “You can see the positive psychological effects lasting for literally months,” she said. These events “really do affect our mood and our well-being overall in life.”
Tripleseat, (a web-based sales and event management platform for restaurants, hotels, and unique venues) consumer survey shows that events are picking back up for the holiday season. Restaurants, hotels and other venues should do their best to be prepared for a busy season of booking events, holiday travel reservations, weddings, catering
orders and workplace holiday parties. Tripleseat’s survey hilights 66% saying their employers will be holding a holiday celebration this season and 84% of those events are in-person this year. This is a huge influx compared to the amount of 2020 virtual events.
Lastly, large events also supply us novelty. Even without the restrictions of a pandemic, it’s often easy to go about our day to day lives doing the same repetivitve thing which can begin to feel monotonous. The importance of bringing back these events can help us directly add that pizazz back into our life.
Attending large events is truly a foundational human need that we have not been filling as much as we want to. Looking toward the future, more people will flock back to events, maybe in even greater numbers than 2019 levels. Will business operations be ready to handle the demand?