The national congress of the Spanish Association of Conference Centres (APCE) gets underway today until 4th July at the Navarre Conference Centre and Auditorium (Baluarte).
The member centres continue to support this annual event, which this year will be attended by 60 participants from 25 venues across Spain, and is entitled “Time for reflection”, and is based on a more open, plural, and interactive format.
Almost 800 people have taken part in this meeting over the last 12 years, including the managers from the country’s major conference venues. These buildings play an essential role as economic drivers for local development, generating an economic impact which is three to four times higher than income from tourists on holiday.
The investment made in building these venues is estimated at around €1,600 million, a figure which has been easily recovered in the Association’s almost 20 year history, thanks to the economic impact generated by the centres’ activities, which totals €20,000 million. In addition, in employment terms, Spanish conference centres generate around 3,000 jobs between staff and outsourced work.
Statistics show that conference centres are the main venue of choice for large-scale meetings in Spain, hosting 70% of international events attended by between 1,000 and 4,000 visitors. For example, in 2013, around half of the delegates attending congresses and conventions came from overseas.
Thus, conference centres contribute to Spain’s excellent position on the international meeting ranking, as the International Congress and Convention Association’s statistics reveal. According to this data, in 1995, the year the APCE was founded, Spain hosted 122 international meetings and stood 8th on the world ranking. Today, Spain is on the podium, occupying the third position behind the USA and Germany, with 562 international meetings, and with three Spanish cities (Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia) in the top 31 positions in Europe.
These and other issues that confirm the importance of conference centre activity as catalysers of meeting tourism, as well as the need to correctly manage the venues, will be dealt with during the two intense days of the APCE congress.
The programme is completed with the technical and sales working groups, which will deal with the use of social networks, catering, sustainability, and the omnipresent issue of Wifi, amongst others. Delegates will be able to follow the congress on the social networks (@12CongresoAPCE), thus integrating technology into the issues to be dealt with and into the event schedule.
Speakers at the congress include Carlos Andreu, coach and trainer; María Teresa Martínez, the head of the Agenda 21 office, the United Nations Programme for Sustainable Development; Rufino Lasaosa, a specialist in 2.0 communication, and Enrique Martínez, head of the restaurant Maher de Cintruénigo and partner of Mahercatering.
During the congress’s gala dinner, the APCE award will be given to the Spanish Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (SEGO), represented by its Chairman, Dr. José María Lailla Vicens, in recognition of SEGO’s repeated endorsement and use of APCE conference centres to hold its meetings.
In the words of the APCE Chairman and CEO of the Valencia Conference Centre, José Salinas, “The APCE congress gives us the opportunity to debate, update our knowledge, and discover the new environment that surrounds us and the best strategies to manage the venues, as well as exploring the keys to continue meeting the new challenges for the sector.All with the ultimate common aim of offering quality infrastructures that continue to consolidate Spain’s position on the international meeting ranking”.
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