Copenhagen Convention Bureau has published a sustainability guide for planners to help minimise the environmental impact of meetings and events. As part of Copenhagen’s Tourism for Good Strategy 2030, the bureau has created a special microsite with a toolkit and case studies. The guide is based on six key pillars and offers insights into the development of a new generation of sustainable events.

Registration has opened for the Union of International Associations’ 9th Associations Round Table Asia-Pacific, taking place as a hybrid event in Tokyo on October 21st and 22nd. Registration has also opened for UIA’s 14th Associations Round Table Europe, taking place as a hybrid event in Prague on November 18th and 19th.

A study by the German Convention Bureau found almost 50 percent of organisers planning regional or smaller events in 2021. But some people are still reluctant to travel at the moment. So if target groups cannot come to a central event, why not bring the brand to them instead? As a flexible format that can be scaled at will, hybrid roadshows can replace trade fairs, press events, central launch events, kick-off events or management conferences. Agency VOK DAMS has published a white paper called “Think Globally, Experience Locally”.

In the same vein, the German Convention Bureau has put together a helpful overview of the streaming studios that German destinations and venues have to offer for hosting hybrid and virtual events.

Austria lifted almost all restrictions on events at the start of July. The development follows the announcement in May of the Vienna Meeting Fund 2021 to 2023, a €4 million package of aid to event organisers hosting meetings in the city. One of the first major events taking place under these relaxed regulations was the European Congress of Radiology 2021 Summer Edition from July 1st to 3rd.

Vienna-based consultancy ENITED explores what business events mean for associations after COVID in a new white paper. According to ENITED, the future belongs to the SMART ones: Sustainable, Mindful, Agile, Reputable and Transformational organisations. ENITED’s Ivo Franschitz and Henrik von Arnold have also given an interview here.

The International Society of Travel Medicine will be holding its 18th Congress from May 21st to 25th 2023 in the Congress Center Basel. The event should attract 1,500 specialists from the travel medicine industry. The venue has posted an interview with Professor Christoph Hatz of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, who played a major role in bringing the event to Basel.

The European Corrosion Conference 2024 is to take place in Paris. The event, bringing together over a thousand international experts in the corrosion and protection of materials, will be held at the Palais des Congrès de Paris from September 1st to 5th. It is the first time the conference has been held in the French capital since the inaugural staging in 1956.

A combined effort of the local Geospatial community, universities and the Firenze Convention Bureau saw Florence win the bid to host the annual congress of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. The non-profit supports the development of free and open-source geographic technologies and data. The 16th edition of OSGeo will take place across multiple venues from August 22nd to 27th 2022. The event is usually attended by around 1,000 delegates each year.

The World Wind Energy Association has selected Palacongressi di Rimini to host the annual WWEC conference to be held from June 28th to 30th 2022. The event is heading for the first time to Italy thanks to the work of Associazione Nazionale Energia del Vento (the Italian Wind Energy Association) and the leadership of Key Energy.

Congress organiser AIM Group International has released the results from a survey Events in-person, hybrid or digital? Trends and perspectives from the Sponsors, which polled 200 representatives from pharmaceutical and biopharma companies. The results revealed that half of the respondents are ready to sponsor in person events next autumn and only 16 percent exclude it as an option entirely.

Calgary, in the western Canadian province of Alberta, once credited oil for its rapid growth. Now, the city is soon to be the largest convention destination in western Canada once the $500 million renovation of BMO Centre at Stampede Park concludes in 2024. The expanded convention centre is just one part of the $1 billion plan underway to position the city as a year-round meeting destination.

The Virginia-based Incentive Research Foundation has published a case study into its own 2021 Education Invitational. From the very beginning of the planning process, health and safety protocols were driving every decision for this 500-person live event held in June.

IRF recently published a white paper summarising facilitated conversations between incentive travel professionals who met in April in The Palm Beaches. The conversations in IRF’s white paper Buyer Decision Drivers are in turn summarised here.

IRF also recently published a white paper called The Impact of Destination Choice on Motivation, to learn how participants feel about incentive travel awards after the pandemic and how destination preferences have changed. A reference deck and webinar is available alongside the study itself.

The Colombian Convention Bureaux Network has outlined its strategies for strengthening and promoting meetings in the country at a hybrid media conference attended by Deputy Tourism Minister Constanza Olaya. These included the unveiling of the Network’s new website, designed to support the reactivation efforts in Colombia and abroad of its eleven destinations.

The SA Events Council rotates its leadership every six months, so August sees Ellen Oosthuizen, Chair at the PCO Alliance, hand on the SAEC Chair to Exhibition and Events Association of Southern Africa Chair Gill Gibbs. Gibbs is well-known within the industry as a passionate leader excited by challenge and change. Raylene Johnson steps up as SAEC Vice Chair, taking over from Glenton De Kock, CEO of SAACI.

Enhancing partnerships, growth and opportunities for associations after the pandemic in Africa is the theme of this year’s African Association Summit. The AAS3, launched by the African Society of Association Executives in 2019, was due to be held at Rwanda’s Kigali Convention Centre but will go ahead on September 23rd and 24th as a hybrid event. The summit will bring together both African and international associations and not-for-profit executives to discuss the future of the sector.

The Africa MICE Summit2021 was formally launched on July 9th 2021 in a virtual event that brought together industry associations, venues and other stakeholders. The Summit, which will be held on September 8th to 10th, is a major platform for the business events industry in Africa, showcasing the sector and its investment and partnership opportunities.

Tourism stakeholders across Africa have the rest of August to get their entries in for the WTM World Responsible Tourism Awards 2021, which for the first time has introduced regional awards, including Africa, India, Latin America and the rest of the world. Winners will be announced at WTM Virtual, taking place digitally on November 8th and 9th this year.

The African Energy Chamber’s African Energy Week 2021 is taking place in Cape Town on November 9th to 12th. Hosted at the V&A Waterfront and across multiple other venues. including museums, restaurants, the aquarium, a golf course, conference halls and art galleries, AEW 2021 will create economic impact across multiple sectors within the South African economy.

Johannesburg’s Ticketpro Dome has been sold by the owners, Sasol Pension Fund, to a third party which does not operate in the event space. The ban on public gatherings has meant that during 2020 and now 2021 the venue has been unable to operate. Over the years, the Dome has hosted top international music artists plus consumer and trade shows like Mediatech Africa and the Africa Automation Technology Fair.

The Cape Town International Convention Centre has further enhanced its digital and hybrid event solutions. Its CTICC Engage is powered by the hybrid and virtual conference service provider MyPlanner. The platform allows organisers to host seamless events where attendees can engage with in-platform interactive online meetings and live presentation sessions.

The next Dubai Association Conference will take place on February 21st. The association only event will be organised at the Dubai Exhibition Centre within the Expo 2020 Dubai site. Ahead of the main conference, a series of three interactive online sessions are being held through 2021. The first of these was on June 15th.

The Tokyo Convention and Visitors Bureau Business Events Team has released “Sustainability Experience in Tokyo”, which offers ideas to conference organisers aiming to make their events in Tokyo more sustainable. The guide, which includes eleven programs in total, also integrates perspectives on the UN SDGs.

The Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau has published a “Regenerating Legacies” Recovery Roadmap, a call to the global conventions industry to get ready for when international borders open fully. The Regenerating Legacies conversations aim to explore fundamental beliefs with association experts and industry partners.

As Thailand’s meetings industry recovers, the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre has posted details of its reopening health and safety operational guidelines. Areas in the centre are carefully managed to avoid the risk of infection and strict screening measures and systems give exhibitors and visitors the safest experience.

The biennial World Federation of Haemophilia World Congress is taking place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2024 after coronavirus scuppered the 2020 meeting. The event, which typically attracts around 5,000 delegates, including patients, is dedicated to improving the lives of people with genetic bleeding disorders. Bangkok, Thailand, was the last Asian city to host the event in 2004. The 2022 event is in Montreal, Canada.

Business events leaders in Sarawak have slated a possible reopening of the industry in October after 2,000 industry professionals were fully COVID-19 vaccinated. Industry workers were jabbed during the final phase of the Industrial COVID-19 Vaccination Programme in July at the Association of Churches Sarawak, Kuching.

Strict safety measures were in place when Seoul hosted the 17th HETI International Congress, a meeting of experts in equine-assisted education and therapy. The mix of experts in the field were sanitised immediately upon entering the venue via the Quarantine Gate which sprayed disinfectant directly onto them. As part of the wider PLUS SEOUL programme, the venue also used thermographic cameras and infrared thermometers to monitor body temperature.

Constellar Holdings, the recent rebrand of SingEx-Sphere Holdings, has announced 21 job losses as it “rightsizes” due to the prolonged impact of COVID-19. The redundancies affect twelve percent of all employees in the Singapore headquarters and come just as new group CEO Jean-François Quentin takes up his post.

The Singapore Tourist Board has opened a new regional office in Brussels. The new branch’s mission is to lay the groundwork for a stronger recovery and to capitalise on growth opportunities across business events in Benelux, France and Switzerland.

Last year the 59th ICCA Congress took place in the Taiwanese harbour city of Kaohsiung. Its legacy was the Kaohsiung Protocol, a strategy framework for the sector. MEET TAIWAN has set itself a goal of promoting conferences that implement the spirit of the Kaohsiung Protocol. Recent examples include the 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Development Goals: Climate Change and Green Technology (2021 ICSDGs) held in Dalin Township and TASS 2020 (Asia’s Sustainable Supply and Circular Economy Conference and Exhibition) in Kaohsiung.

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre’s management company HML has introduced a lottery incentive prize to encourage Hong Kong residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Prizes valued at over $64,000 include year-round unlimited dinner buffets and dining vouchers at HKCEC’s restaurants. Participants must have completed their vaccination course on or before August 31st to be eligible to win.

Shenzhen World Exhibition and Convention Center (Shenzhen World) has issued an update. The venue delivered eighteen exhibitions by June, including ChinaPlas, the biggest rubber and plastic exhibition in Asia, Gift Show Spring Edition, attended by over 200,000 buyers, and SIMM, the most influential manufacturing and equipment exhibition in Southern China. There will be 47 exhibitions in the second half of 2021.

Diane Chen, general manager of the Shenyang New World Expo has been awarded the designation of Certified Venue Executive from the International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM). She joins only 310 other CVE’s who have received the certification since 1976 and is the first to do so in mainland China. Eight other venue managers have been awarded their CVE certification this year.

Tourism Australia has announced the departure of its executive general manager Penny Lion in a wider reshuffle that will see the agency focus its recovery efforts on the domestic market. Lion consolidated Tourism Australia’s approach to marketing the country as an international business events destination and managed the implementation of programmes like the Business Events Bid Fund and Business Events Boost.

Business event leaders in Melbourne hope a meeting of 5,000 psychologists will have a lasting positive impact on the city’s mental health strategy. The capital of Victoria is set to host the 2028 International Congress of Psychology, the world’s largest gathering of psychologists, after winning a competitive bid. Held every four years, the flagship conference is returning to Australasia for the first time in 40 years, and for only the second time in ICP’s 132-year history.

Extra funding has been pumped into Queensland’s business events industry to encourage more in person meetings. The subvention is part of the Palaszczuk Government’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan, following an earlier round of money in March that helped secure twenty business events with a total of 8,300 delegates and an expected value of AU$14 million.

Business Events Perth has announced a limited six-month extension of its Event Here Now fund, through which organisers planning a new business event in Western Australia can apply for sponsorship of AU$15 a delegate up to a maximum of AU$10,000. Sponsorship is valid only for new business event bookings to be held in Western Australia prior to December 31st, 2021.

Business Events Perth has unveiled digital tours of some of Western Australia’s most iconic and impressive conference venues. The 3D tours can be viewed on any device, providing a fully immersive experience of venues such as Crown Perth, the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre and the Optus Stadium.

ICC Sydney adapted to changing restrictions to convert The Royal College of Pathologists Australasia Pathology Update 2021 from hybrid to fully virtual in just 48 hours. The aim was to make the event complete with keynote speakers, workshops, breakout sessions and exhibition content using ICC Sydney’s Connect platform.

ICC Sydney Connect, together with the venue’s new Media Studio, its approach to COVID safety and its legacy program, are all discussed in this Boardroom article. In an uncertain landscape, ICC Sydney has successfully and continuously adapted its services to support events going ahead under global and local health restrictions.

Business Events Industry Aotearoa has released its latest guide to New Zealand for event planners. The new-look 29th edition, was launched at MEETINGS 2021 and 2,500 copies have been distributed to business event organisers across Australia and New Zealand.

The 17th Congress of the Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant Association has been held, bringing together international experts and researchers to discuss the challenges in managing intestinal failure. Auckland Convention Bureau worked with Dr Helen Evans, Head of Paediatric Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland, to secure rights to the event. Tourism New Zealand also provided support for the bid.

Until the next time…

Robert Coren, Curator of The Iceberg