High-profile professionals of the meeting industry gathered in Thessaloniki, Greece on 31 January – 2 February 2013 to participate in the ICCA Joint 4-Chapter Summit 2013. The summit was jointly organized by four ICCA Chapters – Mediterranean, UK/Ireland, Central European and Middle East, aiming to deliver inter-chapter education and create business synergies opportunities among its members.
The ICCA Joint 4-Chapter Summit, originally initiated by the Mediterranean Chapter, was attended by Professional Conference Organisers (PCOs), Convention & Visitors Bureaus, conference and exhibition centres and congress tourism businesses, all playing a key role in raising the profile of their cities as a major conference destination.
Miranda Ioannou, ICCA Mediterranean Chapter Chair and ICCA Board Member, noted “One of our goals was to forge synergies with destinations close to Thessaloniki to enable business development to take place before-during and after the Chapter Summit”.
Martin Sirk, Chief Executive Officer of ICCA said “It is time to understand that the Meeting Industry is not only playing an important role in the development of tourism sector in a country but also in the growth of the national economy itself”.
“We are very pleased to having hosted this event in our city which will hopefully boost the city’s conference potential and promote its tourism product”, said Valentini Amarantidou, head of ARTION Conferences and Events that had submitted in the past the bid for the Summit jointly with the Thessaloniki Convention & Visitors Bureau.
