Here is how event professionals can work towards delivering truly inclusive experiences—from the destination selection process to measurement.
Trevor Lui is an author, restaurateur, chef, and co-founder of Quell Now, an agency representing food & drink talent with a focus on broadening BIPOC work and leadership and DEI consultation. He is also vice chair of Destination Toronto’s Board of Directors, and has spent more than 20 years producing thousands of event experiences as an executive for major entertainment venues, hotels and casinos.
As part of Skift’s Diversity Meeting Planning: A Guide to Creating Equitable and Inclusive Event Experiences, Lui shared his insights on how planners should build DEI into every stage of an event—from the destination selection process all the way to ongoing measurement of progress.
“It's really important that senior leadership, organizations and site selectors prioritize involving a high level of community to help them build an authentic, inclusive experience in their events.”
– Trevor Lui
1. Tap into community leaders and tools.
For organizers of business events and meetings, a diverse and multicultural local infrastructure provides you access to individualized leadership within the communities you need to include and consider. With that said, these advantages don’t automatically materialize because you’ve chosen a multicultural city to host your event.
Fundamentally, to be a multicultural city only means you have multiple groups in one place; you can't just hang your hat on being a diverse city alone. Diversity doesn't necessarily equate to inclusion.
What it does mean, though, is access to community tools. It's really important that senior leadership, organizations and site selectors tap into those tools and prioritize involving a high level of community to help them build an authentic, inclusive experience in their events.
It's also important to understand the difference between appreciation vs. appropriation. If you’re trying to impart something culturally that you’re not authentically good at, enlist someone within the relevant community to help so that we can bring forward a more authentic experience.
2. Identify partners that embody DEI principles.
I always say that the journey to understanding the strategic and cultural foundation of DEI for companies is whether or not it's embedded within the business culture of the organization.
I think it's very clear how businesses operate based on how they treat their people, how they build their organizational structure, how they lay the foundation for a supportive cultural framework and how they pave a pathway for access to equal opportunity within their company. All of these elements are generally indicative of the way they'll operate while working with an event professional in meeting their DEI goals.
3. Build criteria and tools to assess DEI values.
Think about 15, 20 years ago when meeting planners were starting to choose destinations and venues based on their sustainability plans: They were new at it; they didn't know what to do. But you could see how a city and organization and a community rallied around the culture. And you can now see how it shifted the business.
Diversity, equity, inclusion—it’s no different. It's fairly new to a lot of people. It's not new to those who are embedded in it, but it's new to organizations where the structure has been very, let's say “traditional”.
So, there is some learning there. Similar to looking at any other criteria, it’s a matter of understanding and learning and finding the educational tools to figure out how to evaluate authenticity within an organization or a destination.
Progress starts with acknowledging shortcomings—and seeking out partners who can set you on the right path.
4. Gather input from key voices.
How do you begin this process of evaluation?
Number one: Remember that your clients are your attendees. You have to listen to your attendee base. You have to go and ask the difficult questions. Understand the importance of certain things within their event, what the threshold is, and whether or not you’re doing the right thing.
Second: Work with an organization from the top down. If there is no belief that improvement is required within an organization from top down—that is, starting from the C-suite and executive level—then any change is going to be very difficult. Use this as a litmus test to choose who you are going to partner with and as a structure to measure impact.
If you take a look at the underserved and underrepresented groups of any organization—and that could be neuro-divergent people, that could be 2SLGBTQIA+ identities, folks who have physical accessibility needs, and of course cultural groups—most of these categories fit within the core foundation of the workplace. It's not necessarily reflected in the C-suite or executive level, right? And so your voices are usually the people who are doing the heavy lifting.
5. Set benchmarks and measure change.
Understanding both those factions, and getting feedback from both, is generally how you can pull out the most important facets that help to build a baseline against which you can measure your change.
A lot of people think that they have to go from zero to a hundred in year one. I always say if today you're at zero and tomorrow you're at plus five, you're five percent better than you were yesterday.
No matter what you're doing on this curve of continuous improvement, understand how to build your KPIs. Understand what your baseline is in year one and understand your goal in, let's say, year five. A lot of people think that they have to go from zero to a hundred in year one. I always say if today you're at zero and tomorrow you're at plus five, you're five percent better than you were yesterday.
And you have to be honest. You also have to be very true to yourself to say that “We're not good at this. We don't know what we're doing, and we need to go and get help.” I think that is a really big roadblock for a lot of people, but progress starts with acknowledging shortcomings—and seeking out partners who can set you on the right path.
