By Mathijs Vleeming
The 6th ICCA Association Expert Seminar (AES) took place the weekend before IMEX (22-24 May) at the MARITIM Hotel Frankfurt. This unique, interactive seminar is organised by ICCA and brings together 20 international association executives and 40 international suppliers (ICCA members) to share information and experiences, and to update themselves on the latest trends and ideas relating to international association conferences.
The faculty consisted of a mix of experienced international association executives, association management company professionals, and senior ICCA suppliers (CVB’s, Centres, PCO’s). The AES is moderated by Gary Grimmer, CEO of Gary Grimmer & Company and supported by Association Meetings International, Bosch Congress Rental Network, IMEX, Maritim Hotel Frankfurt and MCI.
This article covers the main topics discussed at this year’s edition of the Association Expert Seminar.
Broadcasting age vs. conversation age
Keynote speaker Michael Priem, CEO of Interactive Agency & Media Company USDM.net immediately set the trend by kicking off with his session on Interactive Strategies.
Recent statistics show the importance of including online strategies in marketing and communication to target audiences: 80% of all travel is booked online, global search engines are becoming vital (84% of people find a website through search engines) and advertising and media spend is moving online (e.g. internet advertising revenue share has surpassed television spend in the United Kingdom). Michael Priem stated that these new ways of communicating have moved society from a “broadcasting age” into a “conversation age”.
Social Media
Today, 62% of all internet users worldwide have created a social network profile.
The rise of social media provides new opportunities for the way we communicate; social networks such as Twitter allow for real-time online interaction to take place.
Associations are being challenged to use electronic marketing and communication and develop social media strategies. Many associations as well as suppliers are currently discussing how to use social media in their marketing and communication.
A lot of educating needs to be done on social media. Associations expressed their needs for a better understanding on how to monitor content of social media and expressed their lack of resources to implement and administer social media strategies. Social networks are still often seen as “fun” and “leisure” and do not get the priority they deserve.
The attendees also expressed the challenge of the generation gap; local representatives of international associations who are involved in organising a local meeting are often of an older generation, which is not as involved in interactive media as generation X and Y.
Anecdotal stories showed how social networks offer new opportunities like generating feedback and facilitating online networking and online association governance.
Sustainability of associations
The main value propositions for associations are seen to be:
1. Content
2. Community/Networking
3. Commitment
Content
Corporations which offer online webinars and information which is freely available on the web are potential competitors for associations, which makes it more important for associations to differentiate themselves by delivering quality in content. In other words: Associations should be developing organic, live content which is accessible for members only and seen to be highly credible.
Community
Virtual communities will not replace face-to-face meetings. Social networks provide extended networking opportunities for face-to-face networking, like pre- and post congress networking; they do not threaten it. Or as meetings technology Guru Corbin Ball puts it: “There is no such thing as a virtual beer”!
Commitment
Association branding plays a key role in this process: associations have to earn their brand reputation by showing commitment in delivering their brand promise and by showing consistency in their communication, products and services.
Association membership focus will switch from delivering bundled services to members to delivering specific services to customers. Therefore, associations are moving from being service providers to being marketing professionals. Recruitment and servicing of membership will no longer be the only objective; marketing the association’s services through different channels will play a key role. Associations will be less worried about the number of members and will be more interested in the number of “followers” of their association.
Associations have to become more efficient and will be run by professionals – either dedicated in-house staffs or management companies – and will be less based on volunteers. Many associations already have a clear distinction between the non-profit and for-profit parts in their governance structure.
Associations have to find new value propositions for members: networking is king, and content of association meetings and webinars has to be new, authentic and exclusive. Associations have to offer accredited webinars, for example.
Representation and advocacy will become a more important task for associations in the future. Human interest associations will be free (no paid membership) and fully rely on sponsorship.
Association meetings
Meeting budgets of international associations are being cut and time pressure of volunteers is increasing.
The location of a meeting has a huge impact on the number of participants attending it. As association meetings are pressured by the economic climate and the increased competition, new regions or countries may not be chosen because of attendance pressure. Moreover, a global rotation area could undermine the attendance base of association meetings, as large groups of members may choose not to cross borders to attend international meetings because it will come back to their region in a couple of years.
Therefore it is foreseen global associations will organise smaller, regional meetings, which will compete with national meetings.
Another trend though, which seems contradictory, is that regional associations are merging and globalising for commercial and/or knowledge reasons.
Especially for participants over 45 years, networking at an international meeting is more important than education. At very large meetings (e.g. 14,000 participants) networking is very difficult, but they will not disappear as people want to be there because “everybody is going”. Middle size meetings could have a problem though.
Safety and security and therefore risk management and flexibility will play a bigger role and more meetings, as well as headquarters of associations, will move to emerging destinations in Asia, Middle East and Africa.
The generation change and the use of technology will change the architecture of future meetings. The new generations have other educational needs based on more interaction.
Convention and Visitors Bureaus have to understand the core objectives of an association: instead of asking them “What are you looking for in a destination?” they should ask: “What are the strategic goals of your congress?”
Corporate Social Responsibility and the environment
Lots of associations are doing CSR on a tactical level, while CSR of associations should be at strategic level; associations should be driving sustainability by helping their members to be sustainable. Sustainability is a lifelong commitment; just using recycled congress bags and glass water bottles instead of plastic is not enough.
CSR should play a big role in the decision-making processes of international associations on where their next meeting will be held. Currently, if a venue is “green” it does not play a decisive role in that process yet.
“Meetings are a catalyst for change”
It is a mission for associations and suppliers to create awareness of CSR for the world outside the meetings industry.
Association meetings can influence the long term legacy of sustainability of destinations. An example would be the European Wind Energy Association which does not go to a destination that does not live up to their standards – the city of Marseille in France now lives up to those standards because it wanted to host the EWEA meeting.
The recent Copenhagen climate meeting also illustrates this. Inspired by the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) that took place in Denmark’s capital in December 2009, seven innovative organisations created a coalition to further increase the sustainability of this event and other large international meetings in the future. The initiative is called the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol (CSMP). The CSMP offers a flexible, umbrella framework that can be used to organise large, complex meetings in a more sustainable way. The protocol is intended to inspire planners to strive for excellence in sustainable management of their meetings now and in the future (more information on www.csmp.dk).
But it also works the other way around: CVBs and Venues also influence associations to be green by offering free public transportation or technological solutions for printing hard copy papers.
Several initiatives of green venues are arising; Melbourne just opened the greenest venue in the world and a “Green Venue Alliance” of Cape Town, Liverpool and Melbourne has been launched. New congress venues have to be green due to social pressure. All venues represented at the AES stated that being green definitely makes a difference. Though, at the moment, corporations seem more interested in choosing green venues for their meetings than are associations.
Convention 2020
Rohit Talwar, Chief Executive of Fast Future, presented some of the findings of the Convention 2020 study, of which ICCA and IMEX are the founding sponsors. Fast Future Research launched a ‘Pathfinder Report’ on the key strategic challenges and choices facing the industry over the next decade during IMEX.
Rohit Talwar pointed out that the meetings industry needs to be aware of what is happening in a couple of years and have an open mind to it. All the technology challenges should not be perceived as threats but as new opportunities.
A lot of the technological innovations are used already e.g. during the recent no-fly zone due to the Icelandic ash cloud when cancelled meetings were replaced by virtual meetings. Also, many associations are using technological innovations just to try something different.
An implication of the new format of future meetings is that the cost structure will change: revenue will switch from registration fees to payment for online pay-per-view sessions. Suppliers need to be more flexible on the number of participants of an event by taking an investment risk together with the association and share the profit of a meeting.
The Pathfinder Report provides a glimpse of the content of the full phase 1 report to be released in July 2010 as part of the groundbreaking Convention 2020 study on the future of meetings, venues and destinations. It can be downloaded from the Convention 2020 website:http://convention2020.meetingsreview.com/Phase1Report. The final report will be presented in October at the ICCA Congress in Hyderabad, India.
Best edition yet
Moderator Gary Grimmer says: “The AES has always gotten pretty good marks from the participants over the years, because it is a unique opportunity for association executives and ICCA members to get together to discuss current issues in the international meetings market. To me, this was the best year yet. We had some very interesting discussions that were at very a high strategic level. I think it gave the association executives a lot to think about, and the ICCA members went away with a much better understanding of the challenges their customers are facing.”
“The ICCA Association Expert Seminar is the right place to meet the right people and interact with each of them. Buyers and suppliers learn to comprehend each other.” says Irina Radu of the MSC Association.
Hazel Kennedy of the Liverpool Convention Bureau: “The Association Expert Seminar was a great way to meet face to face with Association members and really get ‘inside their heads’ to understand the challenges and opportunities they face.”
The ICCA Association Expert Seminar will take place again next year, right before IMEX and is open to ICCA members and Association Executives only.
