SITE
The Vancouver
Manifesto
SITE CHIEF EXCELLENCE OFFICER
DIDIER SCAILLET SHARES SOME OF
THE THEMES DISCUSSED BY A RECORD
NUMBER OF DELEGATES AT THE
ASSOCIATION’S RECENT GLOBAL
CONFERENCE IN CANADA
eginning with The Bangkok Manifesto at
last year’s SITE Global Conference, each
year we uncover the trends, themes and
topics that are important, impactful and
relevant for incentive travel professionals.
The Vancouver Manifesto is this year’s treatise on
the nature, purpose and direction of incentive travel.
Not only did we have a stellar turnout for our 2020
Global Conference in Vancouver (24-27 January) – 640
attendees to be precise – we accomplished so much
during our annual educational and networking event.
Last year’s Bangkok Manifesto successfully created
the 10 statements on the nature, purpose and direction
of incentive travel, and thus made way for this year’s
revised and updated Vancouver Manifesto.
Sponsored by Meet in Ireland, we created the
Bangkok Manifesto following a series of workshops
with SITE’s international Board of Directors, trustees
of the SITE Foundation and a cohort of global experts
in the field of incentive travel. The final 10 statements
of the Bangkok Manifesto were then crowdsourced
with the full conference assembly using Slido, the
online, audience engagement platform.
The Vancouver Manifesto will be the core reference
point for incentive travel professionals throughout
2020.
Our SITE 2020 President Jenn Glynn said it best:
“This Manifesto will be the go-to piece for our
members that articulates the true purpose of incentive
travel and demonstrates its value in today’s business
world.”
With the Manifesto, we not only reach our
membership and our industry, but the mainstream
business world, as well.
In workshops during the conference, SITE’s Chief
Marketing Officer, Pádraic Gilligan, along with
facilitator Martin Sirk, wanted to move the Manifesto
from idea to action.
“Because of the groundswell of
viewpoints and involvement from all our
attendees, we now have a series of action
points our members can use throughout
the year,” said Gilligan.
Our additions and amendments for
this year’s Manifesto were also
crowdsourced at the closing session,
giving our attendees (and another 2,000
on livestream) the opportunity to
contribute their two cents as to what
they felt was important for this year’s
Manifesto.
Three amendments were added to
include three important topics:
Sustainability, Corporate Culture and
Economic Growth.
Sustainability has been a topic SITE
has embraced, to show how the incentive
industry is ready to incorporate
sustainable practices into its incentive
travel proposals and contracts to clients.
On the theme of corporate culture, the
idea is, with one voice, we share success
stories of incentive travel programmes
and how they positively affect a
company’s corporate culture, as well as
their bottom line.
As far as Economic Growth, the goal
is to produce evidence of the economic
value generated for destinations that
host incentive travel programmes –
even in second and third tier cities
around the world.
We feel the Vancouver Manifesto will
have a big impact for members this year.
Companies are becoming more and more
reflective about their purpose – why they
exist, what they stand for and, crucially,
what value they create beyond mere
revenue generation. These statements will
be beneficial when our members have
conversations with corporations, CEOs
and HR departments on how incentive
travel can benefit their companies. The
Manifesto will also allow them to have a
broader understanding of incentive travel,
as well.
OUR 3 PRIORITY
STATEMENTS FOR 2020
SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY |
SUSTAINABILITY
CULTURE |
RELATIONSHIPS |
TEAMWORK
ISSUE 105
/
ECONOMIC
GROWTH |
INNOVATION
CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD
/
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