Meetings International

This is an excerpt from the third trend report from Meetings International. Here we raise the knowledge level of the meetings and events industry and list the twelve most important trends in Sweden as we see them.

Atti Soenarso, Chief Editor and Roger Kellerman, Publisher

1. The political awakening (-)

Like a much longed-for sunrise on the meetings industry horizon we have witnessed a change in the political sphere in the past two years. We have sent Meetings International to all 350 Swedish MPs and to several leading politicians in the large cities outside of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Parallel with this we have sent our electronic newsletter to the same people. Naturally, some have left us due to a lack of interest in the contents of the newsletter, but generally the group remains intact. As we understand it, politicians at least read the magazine and glow in the fact that Sweden belongs to the world elite in arranging meetings and events.

Political language is changing as worn out social democratic expressions like ‘visitor industry’ are trash-canned in favour of Meetings Industry and Business Tourism as vital motive powers in Swedish tourism. These two stand for half the turnover in Swedish tourism, in plain figures 120 billion of 240 billion kronor. This is well worth devoting some political interest.

The next step is to create contact surfaces with high ranking politicians. Increased activities at the Almedalen Politics Week on Gotland, arrange seminars in the parliament building and the large cities through MPI (www.mpisweden.se, www.mpiweb.org). In this way we can bring about a dialogue with the politicians who will control Sweden at national level and in the country’s ten to fifteen largest cities. They all want the same thing: good times for the Swedish meetings industry. Our goal must be to provide more knowledge and find new inroads to a political dialogue. There is no politic opposition here, only success if we up the transfer of knowledge and with it the knowledge levels. This is a trend we will monitor and follow up during the coming year.

2. New convention bureaus turn Sweden into a modern meetings country (2)

Last year’s trend report followed closely that which took place in society. The number of convention bureaus (CVBs) grew, and at a quicker pace than we had predicted. A couple of years ago only Stockholm and Gothenburg were on the CVB map. Today we can add Uppsala, Luleå, Umeå, Skellefteå, Gävle, Örebro, Gotland, Jönköping and Malmö and predict Åre, Östersund, Karlstad, Västerås, Norrköping/Linköping, Borås, Lund, Helsingborg, Halmstad and Kristianstad to have CVBs within three years. And not only that. The majority also become members of the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA). We also see that a few of the CVBs are not interested in even trying to manage the task of Professional Congress Organiser (PCO) because it is simpler to show politicians that here is more visible money to be made.

The investment we see on the horizon in Skåne, southern Sweden follows in the path of the work that is underway in Malmö. When the new congress hall in central Malmö is clubbed through during the spring, and one or two of the planned expo halls begin in earnest, it will give the Malmö Convention Bureau a flying start.

But do not imagine for one moment that Stockholm and will just die a slow death. The cities have solid locations on which to continue building upon and Stockholm enjoyed an all time high in 2008, boasting 150 implemented meetings compared to 109 the previous year. Naturally, 150 implemented meetings is more important than a high ranking in ICCA statistics, even if that is still a goal for Stockholm.

3. DMC developments take off (3)

Despite the financial crisis, we are looking to start several new Destination Management Company projects that will breathe new life into an area in which Visit Sweden wishes to see more rapid developments.

Last year we predicted more companies developing their own event/DMC constellations, but this is waiting in the wings as a growth project. We expect a handful of new event/DMC projects during the year. Several larger players have seen the lucrative side of creating a team of event sellers linked to their facilities at first hand and functioning as a DMC. We can count on more light in the meetings industry being shone onto DMC development. When the DMCs learn to use the web and search engines to be found internationally then the number of Swedish DMCs could double. Even more event companies are probably ogling the DMC market, also with one eye on the accomplishments of leading meetings industry companies like the MCI Group and Congrex Bokningsbolaget. What they do usually has a knock-on effect.

4. Strategic alliances and collaboration (6)

Event in Skåne and Tourism in Skåne can be seen as a direct result of what happened in Stockholm and the West Sweden Tourist Board. Malmö is on the rise with new buildings such as the congress hall at the central station, the recently opened Malmö Arena and football stadium and the two coming expo halls, one of which is not far from Malmö Arena. The Malmö Convention Bureau emerges as the one among them looking to make a greater impression, and last but not least there is a destination collaboration project in town that is worth a mention. There could be muscles in this project to propel Malmö back to third place among the country’s meetings towns, but there is still some way to go. The strategy of the Malmö project is however crystal clear. If the pieces fall into place it could be a rapid take off. A strategic collaboration in a Malmö alliance could, in the coming years, convince Skåne politicians of the importance of well-planned collaboration.

Uppsala is in a good position today and the latest investment in a strategic collaboration project to further strengthen the networks to attract more international events and meetings to the university town looks sustainable. Uppsala will not await Malmö and Lund’s (hopefully soon) CVB investments. Uppsala is one step ahead and do all in their power to stay that way.

In this trend we include the project initiated by Anna Johansson, Conference and Event Manager at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH). She has managed to attract a number of universities and other close partners to a joint project that could lift Sweden internationally. Outside the country’s borders not much is known of Swedish universities from the 15-17th centuries with regard to the meetings industry, but just wait. The new universities and colleges our taking university Sweden out of its slumber. This is a trend that should stand on its own two feet, but as it creates a project for strategic collaboration we include it here.

Building each other’s brands is another perspective on the same question. Who are you actually collaborating with? How do you influence each other’s brands? Is it your company that legitimises the other company? In that case, is it you building the other company’s brand and not vice versa. Is that not exactly what brand building is all about? Creating a positive picture of what you do in your company can be razed by liaising with a company that actually cheats its way along pretending to be a member of a quality promoting organisation/association. What does such a partnership mean for your company? What do say to your customers? Greenwashing and quality washing based on a lot of hot air or non-existent knowledge in a subject you claim to know all about can suddenly become as transparent as the Emperor’s new clothes. How nice is being a partner and working together on a strategic alliance then? Customer relations works in much the same way. Do you deepen or superficialise the collaboration? Lastly, it is also about personal relationships. Mutual trust is usually down to something you have created together. Develop your brand with partners who develop your brand. The others take the energy you give but give nothing back.

5. Strong positioning of event companies (7)

It is event companies like brinc relations, Bodén & Co, Idélaboratoriet, Inspiration, Hansen, Contrast, Meet Masters, Lovén & Partners, Dream Communications, Baluba, Imagine, PS Communication, Creative Events, Eventyr, Prosit Design and integrated communications companies like Future Lab and consultancy company for internal meetings Gr8 Meetings who today stand for nearly all the developments within the meetings industry. There are naturally other companies and factors: large companies like Astra Zeneca, Sandvik, Volvo, Ikea, Ericsson and Scania who run their own think tanks with regard to developing meetings and events into more professional, fun and not least profitable occasions. In the past year this trend has further deepened. When we asked for nominations for the Meetings and Event Planner of the Year Award, the best suggestions came exclusively from leading event companies. The simple reason was that they are the ones working with Return On Investment and the meeting’s content, strategy, management and dramaturgy, etc.

6. The company advances its positions through strong personalities

We put the spotlight on Peter Vallenthin, CEO of Geodis Wilson, the 2008 Meetings and Events Planner of the Year. This year’s award will go to the wire. The four finalists (of 15 nominated) were well qualified and all the finalists could have won the award but the jury’s choice finally fell on Peter Vallenthin.

“It was the uncompromising decision to put the meeting in direct focus that was crucial,” says the Jury Chairman Atti Soenarso, Chief Editor of Meetings International.

The three finalists were also strong personalities, and it is also a trend that more people in leading positions understand the power in the professional meeting, using the meeting as a media and thinking strategically. Companies simply advance their positions through such strong personalities

Other finalists: Josefin Sollander, Head of events and sponsorship at SEB. Her department is in charge of the bank’s global sponsorship strategy. They also arrange all the group-wide international events and all large customer events in Sweden. Josefin Sollander’s department holds a hundred or so meetings a year. Three to four meetings attract between 500 and 1,500 visitors, and two, three meetings attract more than 1,500 delegates.

“These include the general meeting of shareholders, the Swedish Open in Båstad as main sponsor, and Match Cup Sweden in Marstrand. We have worked with strategic meetings, both with and without sponsorship, for some time. When we meet people we have access to the whole three dimensional sphere: all the senses in place, a personal impression, how we do things, what we stand for. Those we meet experience the bank’s soul. We know that this gives our customers something extra and creates loyalty, and in the end a business perspective that helps us retain our customers longer and make more money,” says Josefin Sollander.

Ingrid Fleetwood Hesser is Marketing Director for the Nordic market at EDS, a relatively anonymous giant company in the IT sector, which, with its global workforce of 130,000 provides services within outsourcing, offshoring, etc. After HP acquired the company in the autumn, EDS is now the largest IT company in the world.

The fact that EDS is an unknown quantity for most people has not gone unmissed and Ingrid Fleetwood Hesser is endeavouring to change this. One way of reaching out and strengthening the company’s brand is through Pole Position Day, which she initiated and planned together with concept bureau Lovén & Partners.

Pole Position Day is the main activity in a row of annual activities arranged by EDS, a day that offers small and larger meetings, a message interwoven with entertainment. Last year 260 people took part in Pole Position Day, this year many more are expected to take part as the day is being combined with roundtable discussions.

Helene Larsson is Exhibition Producer at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm and recently appointed Cultural Attaché in Belgrade. She was employed to engage more external experts in the museum’s exhibitions and was given sole responsibility for the Madonna Exhibition about one of the world’s most famous women, Mary Magdalene. The response to the exhibition exceeded all expectation, visitor-wise and from colleagues around the world. The opening ceremony also lived up to its billing. Representatives of the Swedish and Catholic Churches were there and the exhibition was opened by a Muslim. The museum had invited 550 people, people who are not normally invited to the museum’s previews, and who normally never meet each other. The exhibition became a pioneering meeting place.

7. The world is just around the corner (13)

The global trend is taking more and space and we could write a book about it. Do not think for one moment that things that happen in Sweden only happen here. Below you can take a closer look at what is happening in Turkey and Qatar.

Turkey is investing a great deal of money in congresses. At an international INCON meeting in Istanbul in January, the country’s culture and tourism minister Ertugrul Gülnay declared that Turkey had a vision to become fifth in the world among congress countries. Turkey is currently in 25th place and Istanbul is 19th among the cities.

“The infrastructure for congresses is vital,” says Ertu?rul Günayand shows some of the great investments the country has made in Congress Valley in central Istanbul. A new congress centre is being built adjacent to an existing congress complex. 800 men are working three shifts, seven days a week to get the building ready for the summer, a few weeks prior to a large international finance meeting. Not far away another three large congress halls are being built, one for roughly 3,000 people, two for 1,000 people each, three for 300 each, as well as a number of break-out rooms for several parallel meetings.

The Minister also emphasised the significance of facilitating for more companies to hold their meetings in the town. Turkey has a population of 80 million, 16 million of whom live in Istanbul, so the domestic market is large in itself.

The political meetings are also on the up and the Minister underlined the importance of collaboration and knowledge-sharing within the industry in the continued development of Istanbul as a meetings city and Turkey as a meetings country.

Onur Gözet, from the same ministry, also spoke on the theme and said that 30 per cent of Turkey’s tourism income already derives from congresses. Antalya and Ankara are also important congress towns and investments are being made to increase the number of towns from three to seven with immediate effect. Add to this the 55,000 hotel rooms in Istanbul and the 90,000 in Antalya.

Turkey will be investing fully in all the large meetings industry expos from now on, that is to say EIBTM (Barcelona), IT&ME (Chicago), Confex (London), EMIF (Brussels) and IMEX (France). Onur Gözet also maintained that there was an expressed political unison in the country for this investment.

Qatar Convention Centre on the offensive. If anybody imagines for one moment that the Arab nations will just lie down and die when the oil no longer brings in enough dollars, kronor or euro have forgotten the thousands of years that business was conducted in this region before oil took over. In the small country of Qatar (as in more well-known Dubai), tourism has long been high on the list of development projects with the future ahead of it.

Qatar is in the process of building the world’s most spectacular meeting place. There is no other way to describe the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC). Opening at almost exactly the same time as the Waterfront Park Inn Congress Centre in Stockholm in spring 2011, the QNCC will be the most well-equipped congress facility in the world.

The large congress hall takes 4,043 delegates, the theatre 2,389. There are a further 52 meeting rooms of which 15 can be converted to five for 260 delegates each. The expo halls are a total of 35,000 square metres, roughly half as large Stockholm International Fairs when its new hall is ready at the turn of 2009/10.

By putting together the exhibition halls at QNCC you can create theatre seats for up to 10,000 people and the same size for a banquet. The expo halls also have two auditoriums for 402 and 296 people respectively, and two other meeting rooms for 120 and 80 people.

The whole facility is located in west Doha inside Education City. Several universities and the Qatar Science & Technology Park are also located here. The Technology Park is home to companies like EADS, Exxon Mobil, GE, Microsoft, Rolls-Royce, Shell and Total, who together with several other companies guarantee investments of just over SEK two billion in the region in the coming years. At the same time as the QNCC opens, the Sidra Medical and Research Center, a medical research, education and training centre specialising in biomedicine will also open.

The airport, which today has the capacity for close on 30 international airlines, will be expanded in two stages. By 2011 it should be ready to take 12 million passengers and in 2015 the capacity will be expanded to 50 million. Qatar Airways, one of only five 5-star airlines in the world, today boasts 80 international destinations. By 2012 the country will have a hotel capacity of 26,000 and will have built 40 new hotels. Stockholm today has 15,000 rooms and roughly 16,000–17,000 by 2012.

8. Incentive trip as CSR (–)

Things are definitely going in a positive direction, although that may be difficult to believe with all the negative events that dominate the media coverage. We were part of an international jury for the EIBTM expo’s event competition and have been jury members for some time. It is easier to see how patterns change with a longer time period to compare to.

Ten years ago the incentive category was often an orgy of gormandising where the winners won a trip to some exotic place, stay at a luxury hotel, drink champagne all night long, eat luxury food and be driven around in a limousine. This still takes place in a few incentive programmes in the EIBTM competition as well, but something else took a hold several years ago and most now offer: The chance to help eradicate world poverty as a thank you for doing a good job back at your company. Surely it is more gratifying to give away something meaningful? Do three lobsters taste any better than one? How much more fun is it to spray champagne on each other than to see children get a water well and an entire village being able to quench their thirst knowing that you helped?

In the incentive competition we are seeing more examples of world-leading companies giving their most successful workers a chance to share their success with others. To build schools, dig wells, lay a football pitch, design a village where hundreds of people get a more tolerable life thanks to your efforts. Or to build a wind generator in a place lacking electrical power. To set up a village school together, equip it with material like pens, paper a computer perhaps and a football to kick instead of tin cans.

We have a fine Swedish example in Bokningsbolaget, who we award our unofficial the Swedish Meetings Industry’s Honorary Award for the best CSR initiative of 2008. Highest points for style and an applaud to the company which for ten years has donated more than 5.5 million kronor to Amnesty, Save the Children, the Red Cross and WWF. Bokningsbolaget is a torchbearer and a good example to all.

9. Green Meetings and Greenwashing (12)

So the term Greenwashing has come to the Swedish meetings industry, albeit taking a few years to get a firm foothold. Green meetings is otherwise an issue that we see everywhere, not least in this magazine and in our annual trend report. Of course the issue is important, very important in fact. But let us not be blinded by what is actually done, because it is not a lot, and in any case we cannot find many buyers from the Swedish business and public sectors who are willing to pay for what they want with regard to green, sustainable meetings.

The event companies we are talking about (a handful of the country’s leading bureaus) verify this. The opportunity for green thinking does exist, even the will to actually do that which can be done, but very few buyers/planners are prepared to pay to go the whole way. Creating a green meeting could actually entail postponing the entire meeting and meet over the web or cable TV. We have seen examples of meetings to which all the delegates travelled by rail wherever possible.

But the basic problem remains. More and more companies have an environmental and/or CSR policy that should make them act even more sustainable than they do. We gladly hang the green meeting sign in the vestibule but the meeting itself is no different to what it has been for the past ten years.

Sweden is world leader in environmental management and Stockholm was recently named Europe’s leading environmental capital. However, the Swedish meetings industry has not been leading with regard to sustainable event planning. For far too many buyers/planners, the term green meeting means confusion and increased costs.

At the end of May, American Amy Spatrisano will be in Stockholm to show her practical tools and solutions that demystify sustainable event planning and create results that build brands and increase profits while rewarding society and the planet we live on. Amy Spatrisano is a leading global name in the green meetings sphere. She founded the company Meeting Strategies Worldwide and is regarded as a pioneer in green meetings solutions. She developed a tool called the Meet Green Measurement, founded the Green Meeting Industry Council and is president of the US APEX sustainable event standards initiative. Amy Spatrisano is an agent of change and innovator in the area of sustainable solutions for the meetings industry’s environmental contribution.

10. MPI’s development in Sweden (-)

Bosse Magnusson is CEO of MCI Scandinavia. During his presidential period, Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the world’s largest network in the meetings industry, raised several crucial issues on the home front.

“The TUR expo in Gothenburg showed us that we need to improve collaboration and up the pace in developing the Swedish meetings and event industry. I feel that we sprawl too much and collaborate too little, and we actually have a golden opportunity to do something about it,” says Bosse Magnusson.

“We need an official network of all the organisations that already exist and which heavily depend on the meetings and event industry. These primarily comprise of private organisations like us in MPI, the Swedish Sponsorship Association, SBTA, ACTE, the Scandinavian Fair Council, but also Swedish members of ICCA, IAPCO, AIPC, SITE, IACC, the large hotel chains, the large event and trade fair organisers, all the convention bureaus in the country, DMCs not already affiliated to MPI or other organisations, and of course SHR.”

Bosse Magnusson is seeking a network that can open political doors, create new channels to debate editors and leading media that know nothing about the meetings and event industry and its SEK billions turnover.

“This is, and will continue to be, our only area of responsibility. The network will only handle common issues such as: compiling statistics that show how large the meetings and event industry is and what it entails with regard to jobs and economic development. There is much to do and perhaps, as one of the first items on the agenda, we should scrutinise the Canadian report on the impact of the meetings industry on the Canadian economy to get an idea of how large the meetings industry really is.”

“Pave the way for politicians, officials and authorities to be able to invest “correctly” once they have understood the impact that congresses and large events have on the Swedish economy. We must educate politicians, officials, authorities and the media in what the meetings and event industry is and what it stands for. Not least financially. It should be in the interest of all politicians to learn more about an industry that has all the prerequisites for rapid growth in the coming ten to fifteen year period.”

11. A Brain Check (-)

2008 was the Year of the Brain, but shouldn’t every year be the Year of the Brain? In this year’s trend report we have omitted the meeting as a strategic weapon, not because it no longer exists but because it does not feel as though we have taken that vital step forward, with the exception of a few cases, such as those who reached the final of our the Meetings and Event Planner of the Year Award.

We put the spotlight on our columnist Tomas Dalström, Very Important Brains, and the article series A Brain Check as a vital platform for revamping the meeting to a strategic issue; now with the brain as starting point and perspective. Texts, language, communication skills, aromas, colours, sound, lighting are issues that should be given much more attention by those who create meetings and meetings contents. Why do we not better utilise the knowledge that exists on the brain? Where does the resistance stem from? We will find out and share our findings during the year.

12. CSR and environmental issues (12)

Like a hurricane the term Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) swept through agendas, inflammatory speeches and programme descriptions. This is an important issue, in theory at least. This is a trend to keep our eyes on. CSR is on every agenda at the meetings industry’s courses, in leading educational and networking organisations and just about every company that sees itself as leading edge with regard to progress and social responsibility. International surveys, including for example MPI’s own survey, show that roughly 80 per cent agree that the meetings industry must take a moral stance, but only 20 per cent of the respondents do anything tangible. Environmental work is a vital part of CSR and the issue has been on the agenda ever since the Keep Sweden Clean campaign of the 1960s. We are also relatively well positioned from an international perspective, but there is still a long way to go on this issue.

But there is also a CSR washing warning to look out for. Is CSR worth the paper it is written on or is it just a PR and marketing stunt where everybody must say yes but nobody does? With regard to incentive trips, we have already revealed enough about them, greed is not compatible with CSR. We will no doubt see more companies actually create CSR work based on a CSR policy.