AIPC
AIPC 2.0
WE PRESENT THE FIRST CMW COLUMN FROM AIPC’S NEW CEO SVEN BOSSU, WHO PREFACES
A SIX-MONTH, SIX-PILLAR PROGRAMME OF CHANGE FOR THE ASSOCIATION
AIPC, the global association of event
venues, launched its change process
during its 2019 Annual Congress in
Antwerp. The current crisis will
accelerate this process as the AIPC
community is facing unprecedented
challenges and opportunities. A six-pillar
programme – actively supported by the
AIPC Board of Directors – will focus on
creating maximal value for its members
and the event industry.
Created in 1958, AIPC has a
longstanding tradition of providing value
to its members across the world. The
association is committed to encouraging
and recognising excellence in convention
centre management, while at the same
time providing the tools to achieve such
high standards through its research,
educational and networking
programmes.
The reality in which our members
operate has fundamentally changed over
the last months. Event venues have
demonstrated their community
engagement by transforming themselves
into health and care facilities to support
overwhelmed health systems and, at the
same time, were confronted with
measures which implied closure for
business.
AIPC – in collaboration with industry
associations UFI and ICCA – launched a
series of guides providing best practices
when confronting the challenges
imposed and which provided tangible
support during the first phase of the
crises: survival.
With exit strategies now being rolled
out in different regions we enter a
different phase. Thrust needs to be
regained that organised events can take
place in a safe and secure way and still
achieve their core objective: connecting
people, exchanging ideas and driving
innovation. All of which is dearly needed
to relaunch the world economies.
This reality offers an opportunity to
AIPC to accelerate the change process
initiated by the Board of Directors in
2019. A change programme, focusing on
six key areas, has been set up and will be
implemented in the next six months.
Each of those areas will be ‘curated by a
member of the Board of Directors.
The outcome of this change
programme will provide a tangible
toolkit, allowing our members not only
to adapt to but to thrive in a new reality.
This is indeed the ambition we should
have as an event community: to come out
of this crisis stronger together.
This will require leadership, creativity
and imagination. We will need to boldly
go where no person has gone before in
the space of events and chart these
unknown territories in order to create
value for our customers and for the
ecosystem in which we function. Venues
can no longer see themselves in isolation:
we are part of a larger ecosystem and can
have a tremendous impact beyond the
purely economic one.
The recognition of this impact has
already started pre-Covid 19 and will
now be accelerated. Organised, safe and
secure events are a key element for
achieving a wide range of society
objectives – economic, health,
sustainability and so much more.
Achieving this will require even closer
partnerships with key stakeholders such
as local authorities and event organisers.
AIPC will be there to support its
members in creating those partnerships
and to bring them to the level needed to
support the goal of our association:
making the community grow together.
Venues can
no longer see
themselves
in isolation:
we are part
of a larger
ecosystem and
can have a
tremendous
impact beyond
the purely
economic one.”
Below: Sven
Bossu, AIPC’s CEO
ISSUE 107 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / 17