The uneven distribution of fees for virtual academic conferences

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics.

	Mean (median)	Standard deviation	Min	Max
Conference fee in US$, no member, late registration	125.7 (60.9)	156	0	974
Number of days after the 1.3.2020	387	141	88	653
	Percent
Size (duration)
1 day	16
2 days	27
3 days	31
4+ days	27
Location
Europe	43
UK	16
US	14
Other	27
Other characteristics:
Fully virtual	89
Hybrid conference	11
Field: Tourism	61
Field: Other	39
Times higher education ranking	49
Not included in Times higher education ranking	51
Association conference	75
Non-Association conference	25

Source: Websites of the conferences listed in http://www.atlas-euro.org/events.aspx.

Figure 1. Histogram of conference fees in 2020–2021.

Note: Conference fees exceeding USD 400 are censured for a better graphical display. The curve shows the normal density curve. Source: Websites of the conferences listed in http://www.atlas-euro.org/events.aspx.

Table 2. Conference fees by attributes.

	Mean	Median	Test for equality of group means
	$	$	p-value
Size (duration):			0.00
1 day	23	0
2 days	86	60
3 days	122	61
4+ days	243	178
Location:
Europe	120	37	0.53
UK	91	62
US	143	86
Other	146	135
Other characteristics
Fully virtual	109	60	0.00
Hybrid	269	250
Tourism	134	64	0.27
Other fields	112	57
Conference in 2020	95	61	0.23
Conference in 2021	139	61
Not in the Times higher education ranking	137	61	0.21
Times higher education ranking	113	61
No Association conference	95	50	0.24
Association conference	136	84

Note: Test for equality of group means assumes homogeneity.

Source: Websites of the conferences listed in http://www.atlas-euro.org/events.aspx.

Table 3. Determinants of fees for virtual conferences, PPML estimations (tourism and related fields).

	Coeff.		z-stat	dy/dx		z-stat
Days = 1 (ref. cat. Days 4+)	−2.541	***	−4.79	−128.71	***	−7.46
Days = 2	−0.876	***	−4.51	−68.75	***	−5.01
Days = 3	−0.654	***	−2.60	−54.73	***	−2.94
Hybrid	0.560	*	1.95	66.26		1.55
UK (ref. cat. other)	−0.229	**	−2.07	−19.83	**	−1.96
Field: Tourism	0.375		1.61	33.92	*	1.76
Number of days after the 1.3.2020	0.002	*	1.81	0.15	*	1.93
Times higher education ranking	−0.153		−0.89	−14.25		−0.88
Association conference	−0.088		−0.23	−8.42		−0.23
Constant	4.626	***	8.25
Number of observations	76
Pseudo R-squared:	0.43
Pseudo log-likelihood:	−3905.9

Notes: Asterisks ***, **, and * denote significance at the 1, 5, and 10% levels. dy/dx reflects the marginal effects. Estimated by the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimator with clustered adjusted standard errors at the country level of the conference (31 countries).

Table 4. Determinants of fees for virtual conferences, PPML estimations (tourism).

	Coeff.		z-stat	dy/dx		z-stat
Days = 1 (ref. cat. Days 4+)	−2.490	***	−4.99	−143.91	***	−6.23
Days = 2	−0.983	***	−3.66	−70.80	***	−4.20
Days = 3	−0.605	**	−1.97	−51.16	**	−2.11
Hybrid	0.946	***	3.55	127.25	***	2.63
UK	−0.268	**	−2.01	−22.22	*	−1.93
Number of days after the 1.3.2020	0.002	**	2.22	0.18	**	2.32
Times higher education ranking	0.119		0.48	10.94		0.48
Association conference	−0.188		−0.51	−18.06		−0.49
Constant	4.728	***	9.85
Number of observations	46
Pseudo R-squared:	0.59
Pseudo log-likelihood:	−2123.1

Notes: Asterisks ***, **, and * denote significance at the 1, 5, and 10% levels. dy/dx reflects the marginal effects. Estimated by the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimator with clustered adjusted standard errors at the country level of the conference (number of countries 24).

Table A1. Lists of virtual conferences.

Start	Title	Status	Fee
28/05/2020	NASSM 2020 Conference North American Society for Sport Management	online	260
07/06/2020	TEFI 11 What’s Tourism got to do with it? Virtual Conference	online	100
09/06/2020	INC - Revisiting Co-creation and Co-destruction In Tourism, Hospitality and Events	online	113
26/08/2020	The Fifth Biennial Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies	online	46
09/09/2020	Tourism as a Driver or Barrier for Quality of Life	online	0
17/09/2020	ICOT - Tourism in uncertain times: Issues and challenges	online	118
17/09/2020	2nd edition of the International Research Workshop on Wine Tourism will be an	online	0
24/09/2020	Tourism Economics and Management. Tourists as Consumers, Visitors and Travelers	online	0
24/09/2020	Living with Tourism: Paradoxes, Empowerment and Future Direction	online	0
27/09/2020	TTRA - Smart destinations - smarter tourists? A roadmap for the future	online	212
05/10/2020	AGE–IGU - Tourism Sustainability: Overtourism vs Undertourism	hybrid	265
22/10/2020	2020 ATLAS Events and Cultural Tourism Special Interest Group (SIG) Meeting	online	0
22/10/2020	Enabling Tourism To Integrate Ame Economies To Cope With Climate Change: Special Focus On The African Societies	online	0
27/10/2020	Virtual Conference – XII International Tourism Congress (ITC’20)	online	40
02/11/2020	EuroMed - Digital Heritage Documentation, Preservation and Protection	online	0
04/11/2020	The t-Forum Programme*	online	178
05/11/2020	GMC - Bridging Asia and the World: New Marketing and Management in a Digitally Connected World	online	400
09/11/2020	Food Futures in the Anthropocene: Place-Based, Just, Convivial	online	55
17/11/2020	Entrepreneurship for a better future Haaga-Helia Business Innovation Conference,	online	118
20/11/2020	IPSTH2020 is Tourism Restart and Recovery: Responsibility Today, Sustainability Tomorrow.	online	0
02/12/2020	ITSA - Culture, People, and Technology – the Driving Forces for Tourism Cities	online	150
03/12/2020	ATHE - Tourism Education in a Fragile World	online	68
16/12/2020	Consumers’ travel behavior in transition: Between persistence and change". CBTS	online	61
07/01/2021	HTGrad - Graduate Education and Graduate Student	online	275
19/01/2021	ENTER/IFITT - eTOURISM: Development Opportunities and Challenges in an Unpredictable World	online	438
20/01/2021	Archaeological tourism and interpretation	online	0
21/01/2021	NETTRA NorthEast Chapter of the Travel & Tourism Research Association	online	0
21/01/2021	ATLAS SIG meeting - The New Normal in Business Tourism	online	37
27/01/2021	ESARN – Urban Sociology	online	0
03/02/2021	LIT&TOUR - Literature, tourism and cities	online	0
09/02/2021	CAUTHE - Transformations in Uncertain Times: future perfect in tourism, hospitality and events	online	263
18/02/2021	CHRIE - Hospitality Stronger, Together	online	49
25/02/2021	TTRA - The Path Forward	online	86
17/03/2021	CCTR - Climate, Tourism and Recreation	online	0
19/03/2021	The post-pandemic world: A bad picture or a good opportunity?	online	16
26/03/2021	7th IRFGT International Research Forum on Guided Tours	online	61
01/04/2021	Managing Tourism Across Continents – Tourism for a better World	online	50
07/04/2021	Worlds of Imagination: Media, Place and Tourism in Today’s Global World	online	43
07/04/2021	AAG – American Geographers	online	385
12/04/2021	Persuasive Technology - eTourism the 16th international conference on Persuasive Technologies	online	217
15/04/2021	16th World Leisure Hybrid Congress	hybrid	0
03/05/2021	NASSM 2021 Conference North American Society for Sport Management	online	0
05/05/2021	INVTUR - Tourism and the Sustainable Development Objectives: From theory to practice	online	180
11/05/2021	Global Conference on Services and Retail Management (GLOSERV 2021)	online	0
12/05/2021	CHME - Creating Hospitality Experiences: Authenticity in an emerging world of Hyper-Reality	online	197
20/05/2021	ICTR - Tourism Research	online	360
21/05/2021	Tourman	online	0
25/05/2021	ORME AsTRES - City, Events, Mega-Events and Tourism	online	37
25/05/2021	4th International Research Symposium in Tourism, Hospitality and Events: Values and Transformations	online	0
26/05/2021	IGU - Heritage Geographies: Politics, Uses and Governance of the Past	online	37
29/05/2021	CCLR - Humanities and Social Sciences	online	131
14/06/2021	TTRA - Uncharted Territory: Reimagining Tourism in a New Era	online	400
15/06/2021	Phuket International Tourism Conference 2021	hybrid	100
30/06/2021	Places of Peace: Making Europe throughout Peace Treaties	online	0
30/06/2021	APTA - Asia Pacific Tourism	online	140
06/07/2021	LSA - Leisure Identities, Health and Wellbeing	online	54
08/07/2021	Im/mobile lives in turbulent times: methods and practices of mobilities research	online	41
08/07/2021	TOSOK - Rebuilding Tourism for a New Era: Opportunities and Innovative Ideas	hybrid	280
26/07/2021	Annual ICHRIE Conference & Marketplace 75th anniversary	online	110
27/07/2021	AIBR - Humanity: Unity and Diversity	online	382
16/08/2021	IGC – Geography: bridging the continents	online	280
16/08/2021	MMV10 - Monitoring and Management of Visitors in Recreational and Protected Areas	online	136
29/08/2021	AIEST - Shaping Tourism Futures	hybrid	974
31/08/2021	RGS-IBG - Borders, borderlands and bordering	hybrid	235
31/08/2021	TEBEC - Tourism, Economic, Business, education	online	146
07/09/2021	ATLAS annual conference - Tourism as a driver of regional development and collaboration	online	152
08/09/2021	Terres LAB - Audiovisual, Landscape and Tourism	online	61
04/10/2021	ISTTE - Instructional Innovations & Impactful Discoveries	online	25
05/10/2021	QS - Sustainable and Resilient Solutions in Tourism Today	online	250
08/10/2021	Spa & Wellness Tourism - Development, Opportunities, and Experiences	hybrid	37
12/10/2021	3rd International Tourism Retail and Service Management Conference (TRMC) 202	online	59
13/10/2021	TTRA - T4: Traveling Toward Tomorrow Together	online	241
14/10/2021	Tourism Naturally - Nature-based tourism, wellness, health & medical tourism	online	0
14/10/2021	FoodTreX - Food Travel Research	online	84
08/12/2021	ATHE - Hybrid and Virtual Experiences: Opportunity or Threat for Tourism Education and Industry?	online	56
14/12/2021	Resilience, adaptability, digital intelligence, innovation, and smart knowledge	hybrid	264

Note: Conference fee in US$ refers to late registration and non-association member.

Source: Websites of the conferences listed in http://www.atlas-euro.org/events.aspx. Data retrieved until 25 August 2021.