NYC & Co Safe Meetings in NY

How has your day-to-day at NYC & Company evolved since the beginning of the outbreak?

While working from home NYC & Company’s Convention Development team continues to be a resource for meeting and event planners, ensuring that our customers have all the up-to-date information they need (including state and city updates and health, government and industry tools at nycgo.com/coronavirus) and serving as a connection to New York City’s hotel and venue communities when business needs arise.

You have a unique position of being the tourism bureau for the world’s coronavirus epicenter, how has your messaging shifted in the past few weeks?

On a personal level, when speaking with clients and industry partners my approach, first and foremost, is one of compassion. So many clients and industry contacts have become friends over the years. Before discussing business, I want to check on them, their families and see how they have been personally impacted.

As an organization, in addition to continually updating and sharing the facts and resources I mentioned, NYC & Company has created several programs to support New York City businesses impacted by the crisis. Some examples are: Dine in NYC – where you can find NYC restaurants offering gift cards and meal delivery, Virtual NYC – where you can choose from more than 300 entertaining and educational online attractions, and Shop in NYC – which lists local retailers offering goods and gift cards you can enjoy without leaving home! For meeting planners, we have an amazing resource called Virtual NYC Site Tours where you can view many of our City’s hotels and venues spaces online to help you choose the best fit for your future program.

You can also check out our newest video titled Stronger. Brighter. Together. New York City. for some inspiration and a reminder of what makes NYC so special.

While developing these initiatives, we have also been looking towards the future recovery of our industry and city. On May 13 NYC & Company announced the formation of The Coalition for NYC Hospitality & Tourism Recovery, which will focus on messaging, marketing and promotion to restore New York City’s brand locally and beyond, and to safely engage, mobilize and champion all sectors of NYC’s tourism economy once the City begins to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic.

What have you been doing recently to keep a sense of normalcy in your life?

I have been in and around the NYC hotel and tourism community for 15+ years now. I have never lived through something quite like this, but I have been trying to keep perspective wherever I can. The sense of our community and how important strong relationships are has never been so up front and center. There has been a lot of innovation on the technology side. I seem to have Zoom, Skype (and other tech platform) calls daily with our industry association, clients and even social meet ups. While we are apart, we are coming closer together in many ways. I sincerely believe that once we get back to in person meetings, these platforms can positively complement our business.

Matt Schechter, Regional Director, National Accounts, NYC & Co