How does COVID 19 affect workers and consumers' risk perception in the Italian MEEC Industry?

The Italian economy has recently suffered the consequences of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen a peak impact in March 2020. The tourism and hospitality sectors were the most affected economic trades, and the Meetings, Expositions, Events, and Conventions (MEEC) industry, which annually has a significant value on the national gross domestic product and economic growth, has undergone many changes. For this reason, the following study sought to investigate how digitalization affected conferences, exhibitions, and fair-trade events in Italy during the pandemic and changed the attendance of workers and customers. A qualitative and quantitative methodology was adopted by collecting 250 questionnaires to investigate workers' and customers' sociodemographic and economic status, degree of risk perception and method, frequency, and influence of digital transformation. The meaningful results show that the effect of mandatory lockdown in Italy has brought several changes in the events' participation and arrangement. First, the sociodemographic condition and economic status, influenced by the pandemic, affected the decision of workers and customers to organize and attend events. Despite it, transitioning from in-presence participation to online events was positively accepted and encouraging due to the perception of risk, the socioeconomic status of attendants, and their predisposition to use technologies. These adaptions highlighted the usage of digital devices during crises, reconsidering their role in the fruition of events and the participants' sensitiveness due to dangerous situations. Therefore, in the conclusion, recommendations are proposed to improve crisis management adaptability, adjust the future management of in-presence and online events, and improve technology diffusion in the MEEC sectors.