The need to fill vacancies and train staff is limiting the recovery of major meeting venues, a recent report has found. The latest quarterly Meeting Room of the Future barometer by IACC has shown that rehiring and reskilling venue staff continues to place limits on businesses reaching usual capacity. From Association Meetings International…
Peggy Daidakis joined the Baltimore Convention Center just ahead of its grand opening in 1979. Eight years later, she stepped into the role of Executive Director, the first woman to do so at a US convention venue. Now in 2022, after years of service and awards, she is retiring from her post. From PCMA…
Director of Event:Decision Matt Grey, together with Mark Handforth, Director of 3Sixty Event Consulting and Healthcare Venues, haven’t got a quick fix for sustainable meetings and conferences. Instead, they lay out the most effective methods to cut the emissions produced by events in twelve key tips for the sector. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
PCMA has held a roundtable discussion in Washington DC on how to navigate events in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision on US abortion rights. Ninety minutes of fascinating crosstalk on the rights and wrongs of events boycotting destinations because of their laws ensued. From PCMA…
No industry has escaped the talent crunch. For the events sector, hit so very hard by the pandemic crisis, the severe staffing shortage as business returns really stings. Here is a useful roundup of voices on the subject from an association, venues and staffing solution companies, with further reading links. From PCMA…
After the pandemic, the way that associations and destinations are interacting has altered. Within this article various experts weigh in on the changing landscape, including MCI’s Nikki Walker and Destinations International’s Jane Cunningham (both organisations in fact Iceberg partners), and The Iceberg’s own Founder James Latham. From Association Meetings International…
Keeping events diverse and inclusive often means thinking about issues like age, mental and physical ability, culture, religion, gender identity or language. But how can organisers deliver on diversity, equity, access and inclusion? Arinex Managing Director Nicole Walker offers ten tips for holding a more inclusive event. From Association Meetings International…
Future Meeting Space’s latest research radar has looked at global studies, reports and articles on the future of both business events and business travel. Across over eighty studies, nine concrete trends have been identified about the industry, from the impact of sustainability on mobility to the role of hybrid event formats. From Response Room…
Montreal just hosted AIDS 2022 (the 24th International AIDS conference). Around 8,000 attended on site, with another 1,000 online. The legacies of the conference include additional government funds for remote HIV testing in Canada and for ending AIDS worldwide. All outcomes will be measured by Montreal-based Iceberg partner #MEET4IMPACT. From Tourisme Montréal…
Gary Grimmer, the Executive Chairman of Iceberg partner GainingEdge, has been revisiting both his own career path through four convention bureaux, plus the journey of his consultancy from its early days through to navigating the COVID-19 crisis. In this interview he also talks through the GainingEdge report “Leveraging Intellectual Capitals”. From Conference & Meetings World…
The Edinburgh International Convention Centre has given hundreds of Edinburgh Festival Fringe tickets to the venue’s local community. EICC worked with the Pleasance Theatre Trust to provide tickets for the famous arts event through a number of charities and social enterprises. The initiative has been supported by EICC’s catering partner Leith’s. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
Australia is a hotbed of business event excellence, the country’s cities and states both competing and collaborating to win events for the destination. In this high-powered video double bill, The Iceberg hears once again from BESydney CEO Lyn Lewis-Smith, and also from Tourism Australia’s Robin Mack, about the role of meetings in diversifying destinations’ economies….
Located in the Beijing Olympic Green Area, the China National Convention Center, Phase 2 is on track to open in 2025. CNCC-II will host conferences, forums, and banquets for up to 20,000, as well as exhibition events for over 50,000. Rod Kamleshwaran, pre-opening international consultant of CNCC-II and partner at Iceberg partner GainingEdge, explains. From GainingEdge…
With tourism contributing 8% to global emissions, the tourism and events sector has to pay increasing and urgent attention to what it can do to reduce them. There are many great initiatives and motivation from net zero targets, to the Paris Agreement, and the Glasgow Declaration. But what does it all mean? As icecaps melt,…
ICCA has released its annual analysis of association meetings worldwide. The latest ICCA Ranking Report examines 8,000 meetings scheduled for the year 2021 and categorises them based on how the meetings were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also compares last year’s affected meetings with ICCA’s analysis of meetings in 2020. After a hiatus in…
Over 35 policy makers from nineteen countries gathered at the IMEX Policy Forum 2022, held on May 31st as part of IMEX in Frankfurt. The meeting takes place annually and provides a collaborative, global discussion platform to encourage policy creation that directly benefits the global meetings and business events industry. The aim of this year’s…
The association of the German trade fair industry AUMA has announced the sector will be fully supplied by green power by 2025 and climate neutral by 2040. AUMA has just declared that sustainability is to be required in agreements with industry partners from 2023 onwards. These goals were set at AUMA’s annual conference in Berlin. From Exhibition World…
The USA performed better than any other country in hosting events of international associations last year, according to the ICCA Rankings 2021. Spain came second, then Germany, France and Italy. The country listings were released after the city results already posted, along with the publication of the report’s public abstract. From Association Meetings International…
There is still a compelling need to meet in person, but post-pandemic travel has to be business critical to justify the financial and carbon cost. So says a new report from Accor. It claims twenty percent of business meetings “may have gone forever”. But virtual meeting technology is one silver lining. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry, has released the latest edition of its flagship research Global Exhibition Barometer. This shows the sector bouncing back quickly, with revenue for the first half of 2023 expected to reach 87 percent of comparable 2019 levels (2019 being the industry’s strongest year to date). Fom Exhibition World…
Over 40 percent of associations will hold their largest meeting in person this year, according to a survey by ICCA (the International Congress and Convention Association). But only 35.6 percent told the Iceberg partner that it was “very important” to “reduce the environmental impact of their event”. From Association Meetings International…
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