Over fifty Meetings Industry leaders, academics, research organizations and related resources met on May 14 and 15 in Paris under the auspices of the Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC) to review the current status of progress on documenting and communicating the value of meetings as drivers of economic, academic and professional development and to and make strategic recommendations for advancing this in the future. At stake was the ability of the industry to more effectively demonstrate the kinds of values that are now considered to be amongst the top reasons governments and businesses invest in the infrastructure required to support industry growth and development.
“We know from experience that governments are highly interested in the ways our industry can be used to advance their economic and community development agendas, but we have been slow to come up with the kinds of defensible measures for these benefits that can be used to support the required investment” said JMIC President and IAPCO Past-President Philippe Fournier. “The purpose of this conference was to assess our progress toward such measures and to encourage better communications and alignment of the various industry organizations working toward that objective by bringing together a broad and representative group of industry interests along with their advisors and researchers. I believe we achieved that objective and now have a serious of industry- developed recommendations that we will be able to work with in aligning future work in this area.”
The two day conference took place at the Palais des Congrès de Paris and included sessions that spoke to defining the need for better value measures, supplied case studies of work done to date and reviewed the kinds of data currently generated by both Meetings Industry and global tourism and travel organizations. These were followed by a series of workshops that considered alternate strategies and made recommendations for moving forward.
Amongst the conclusions and recommendations were:
“This conference was an important consensus-building exercise that now enables us to move forward with a shared sense of purpose”, said Fournier. “The challenge now will be to decide how best to act on these excellent recommendations, which is a task that must be undertaken by a number of industry associations acting both individually and collectively. It will be a challenging undertaking, but one that will have a huge impact on the future of our industry as we simply cannot fail if we want to be taken seriously by our respective communities and governments”.
The active member associations who comprise JMIC today are:
AACVB, the Asian Association of Convention and Visitor Bureaus
AIPC, the International Association of Convention Centres
ASAE, the American Society of Association Executives
Cocal, the Latin American Confederation of PCO and Related Companies
DMAI, Destination Marketing Association International
ECM, European Cities Marketing
EFAPCO, the European Federation of Associations of Professional Congress Organisers
EVVC, European Association of Event Centres
IAPCO, the International Association of Professional Congress Organizers
ICCA, the International Congress and Convention Association
IFES, the International Federation of Exhibition and Event Services
MPI, Meeting Professionals International
PCMA, the Professional Convention Management Association
Site, the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives
UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry
UIA, The International Union of Associations
JMIC is supported by IMEX and ibtm world
JMIC Secretariat | B-1060 Brussels, Belgium
Tel [32] 496 23 53 27
E-mail jmic@themeetingsindustry.org | Web http://www.themeetingsindustry.org
European Cities Marketing is a non-profit organisation improving the competitiveness and performance of leading cities of Europe. ECM provides a platform for convention, leisure and city marketing professionals to exchange knowledge, best practice and widen their network to build new business. European Cities Marketing is promoting and linking the interests of 110 members from more than 100 major cities in 36 countries.
Contact information
Flavie Baudot
Tel: +33 380 56 02 00