An update on the EMEA Canalys Forums

As I am sure our readers will know, our thirteenth EMEA Canalys Forum is scheduled to take place in Barcelona from 6-8 October at the iconic W Hotel. We wanted to share a few updates on our event as lockdown restrictions across Europe begin to ease.

Spain has now begun its journey toward a “new normal”, with the government confirming the phased re-opening of cities and towns round the country. Government expectations are that the country will have reached the last phase and a “new normal” by the end of June, and from 1 July, foreign visitors to Spain will no longer have to undergo a two-week quarantine.

With this positive news, comes an exciting announcement from the W Barcelona – they have been granted permission to re-open in July, one of the first hotels in Barcelona to be given this approval. The hotel has large amounts of outdoor space that can assist with adherence to current social distancing guidelines and Marriott International has put a number of new protocols in place to increase their cleanliness standards and assist with the adaption of new hospitality norms. You can watch Marriott’s new “commitment to clean” pledge here.

We are working hard to bring the event to you, by using unique spaces and creating innovative initiatives that we hope will be welcomed by all. We are lucky that our chosen venue has so many beautiful, large outside spaces and that digital innovation and tools are already critical to our events’ success, via our world-class event app.

We will be making a final decision whether we can run this event live in Barcelona by the end of July. While we are optimistic, we are also realistic that there might still be too many safety restrictions. So, we are working with the W Hotel to consider three options which are onsite, hybrid and virtual and we will let you know which it will be in about 7 weeks’ time!

We can’t wait to share more details with you, so please expect some further announcements and updates in the coming weeks.

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