Cover Story
Learning to speak with one voice
CMW REPORTS ON THE JOINT MEETINGS INDUSTRY COUNCIL’S GLOBAL
WEBINAR SERIES THAT HAS BEEN DRIVING THE SOON-TO-BE-PUBLISHED MANIFESTO
FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY USING BUSINESS EVENTS
hese unprecedented times
have brought about an
unprecedented
collaboration. On 2 July, the
Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC)
and its Iceberg project, with the support
of four global industry trade events –
AIME, IBTM, IMEX, and Meetings
Africa – provided their platforms for
industry leaders to contribute to a
common global messaging campaign, the
JMIC Manifesto for Economic Recovery
Using Business Events.
This expert crowd-sourced
Manifesto is to be used as an advocacy
tool before government and
decision-makers. And there is surely
the need for the business events sector
to align behind common messaging
and to speak with a united voice.
JMIC president Kai Hattendorf
introduced the project, describing the
Covid-19 pandemic as the biggest threat
to our industry in his professional career.
Many elements of the sector had been
grouped into generic “mass gathering”
terminology, he said.
“As diverse as we are, we must be a
united industry when we talk to
decision-makers and lawmakers and those
who we rely on to get back our licence to
operate. We have to have the right words
and messages to convince our customers
and communities we work for that it is safe
to return to events of all kinds around the
world,” Hattendorf added.
Global cities authority professor
Greg Clark took part in the interactive
conversations advising on how to
deliver key messages to governments
most effectively.
JMIC executive director Rod Cameron
said the project showed the industry had
come together as one to sharpen its value
proposition and make it easy to
understand the critical role that business
events have to play in the post-Covid
recovery.
Robert Coren, Curator of the Iceberg,
JMIC’s online platform dedicated to
celebrating the legacies of business events,
said two dozen videos or Zoom interviews
had contributed to the project which had
reminded the world what it had been
missing these past few months. The
contributors had reinforced the core
Iceberg message of meetings industry
value, which Coren emphasised was not all
about the smaller visible hotel and travel
spending element that pokes up above the
‘Iceberg’s surface, but about the weightier
long-term benefits for society, of meetings
that lie hidden under the water and which
are harder to see and measure.
One of the European panellists was
German Convention Bureau chief
Matthias Schultze who stated succinctly:
“Events are platforms for exchanging
experiences and ideas”.
Strong soundbites followed from Oscar
Cerezales, COO Asia for event
management specialists, MCI Group, who
added: “We grow, engage activate and
Association
meetings
change
the world
and are
the veins
nurturing
society.
monetise communities with events”; and
from Caroline Teugels, executive director,
International Federation of Podiatrists,
who noted the impact of a congress was
not only economic, but was big for
individuals who participate because they
get inspired and leave a legacy at a
destination.
Teugels also noted the important role of
associations and their meetings. “We are
not for profit and all for purpose. We
change the world and are the veins
nurturing society.”
Sisa Ntshona, CEO South African
Tourism, in his video contribution said:
“When great minds get together they
tend to come up with solutions.”
IMEX Group CEO Carina Bauer
added: “Businesses and governments
realise that the most effective way to
communicate is through live events.
That’s why we were in a high in January
2020. We must remember and convey that
in our messaging.”
Some urgency was injected by Lesley
Williams, MD BestCities, who said it was
“tragic” that our industry has had to
practically crumble before government
realised how valuable it is.
Along with the strong comments
underlining the value of meetings, Lyn
Lewis-Smith, CEO of Business Events
Sydney noted that “the world had changed
and turned upside down and stopped in its
tracks in terms of us acquiring
international events. Fellow Aussie Geoff
Donaghy, CEO of ICC Sydney added that
the industry revenues had dried up in
Australia: “The A$35bn that industry
creates is no longer happening and that
money is not flowing through to local
businesses.”
It was a chain of thought echoed by
Maurits van der Sluis, COO of RAI
Amsterdam who noted: “A lot of people
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