News
GLOBAL SNAPSHOT
EUROPE
CityDNA elects new Board members at Budapest summit City Destinations Alliance elected new Board Members during its International Conference and General Assembly in Budapest on 9 April 2025. The event gathered over 250 professionals from the leisure and business tourism sectors.
Patrick Bontinck( Brussels) and Sabine Schwanz( Madrid) were re-elected as vice-presidents. Patrik Romano( Bologna) was re-elected as treasurer. Each will serve a new three-year term. Barbara Jamison-Woods( London) continues as president. Michael Otremba( Hamburg) remains vice-president. The CityDNA Autumn Conference this year takes place in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, 30 September-2 October.
ASIA
SportAccord 2025 cancelled amid Istanbul political turmoil Sports event organisation SportAccord cancelled its 2025 Convention, due to take place in Istanbul 9-12 June, citing“ unresolved issues at host city level”. A full programme and venue had been confirmed for the convention which gathers 1,700 leaders and decision-makers including from 120 international federations and the IOC.
On 19 March Mayor İmamoğlu was removed from office on corruption charges and protests across Istanbul meant, according to SportAccord, that“ several key conditions for hosting the event could no longer be met”. Planning for the 2026 edition is underway.
ASIA
GL events wins contract for 2026 Asian Games in Japan Global integrated event group, GL events has signed a major contract as a delivery partner for the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. The Games take place 19 September- 4 October and are the world’ s second-largest multi-sport event, attracting one billion viewers.
The Asian Games blend Olympic staples like athletics and swimming with regional events such as dragon boat racing and kabaddi.
GL events will provide venue overlay, catering and media areas, accreditation systems and other design, planning and logistics services.
ASIA
Osaka partners with Uber ahead of Expo 2025 Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau( OCTB) is partnering with Uber Japan. International delegates of‘ qualifying’ conferences and incentive tours will get promotional codes they can use for discounts on rides in the city. This partnership‘ first’ has been set up in part to support Expo 2025, which is expected to draw 28m visitors, 13 April-13 October 2025, on Yumeshima Island. As part of the partnership, OCTB will share anonymised data with Uber which will be used to monitor travel patterns around events. Organisers can apply the benefit to qualifying events.
6 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / ISSUE 136