Developing a Digital Maturity Model for the Event Industry

Research related to digitalization in the event industry is scarce and even less to digital maturity models for the event industry. This paper aims to fill the gap and propose a digital maturity model suitable for evaluating event industry digital maturity. The model proposes five maturity levels and consists of 35 digital maturity indicators that were grouped into five dimensions such as technology, dynamic capabilities, processes, customer experience and ecosystem which have been obtained by engaging an external group of experts in the subject matter and clustering dimensions from the existing digital maturity models that have been analyzed. Then, a digital maturity model developed had been validated in the Russian context to identify the digital maturity level of event industry. A questionnaire was developed and sent to 127 leading event companies of the country. The Russian event industry comprises mainly micro and small-sized enterprises, mostly needing support to understand their path towards digital transformation and effective ecosystem based on cooperation with stakeholders through digital channels. This study is the attempt to provide a deeper understanding of a digital maturity phenomenon in the event industry by proposing a new digital maturity model and also provides insights for events practitioners.