CityDNA
Where trust becomes the currency
IAIN STIRLING REFLECTS ON THE RECENT CITYDNA GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HELSINKI
T here are conferences
you attend, and there are conferences that stay with you. The CityDNA International Conference and General Assembly in Helsinki was firmly the latter. Over two days of richly layered conversations, case studies and candid exchanges, one word consistenly surfaced: Trust.
Trust between destinations and their residents. Trust between cities and their visitors. Trust between alliance members willing to share what worked and, perhaps more valuably, what didn ' t. For an organisation built on the principle that cities are stronger together, the theme felt entirely fitting and, given the moment our industry finds itself in, entirely necessary.
The conference brought together destination management organisations( DMOs) from across Europe under the theme The Human Pulse of Place and Purpose – a deliberate shift away from the metrics and dashboards that so often dominate our industry conversations. The subtext was important: beyond the numbers lie the people, and it is people – their behaviour, motivations, emotions – who ultimately shape the success or failure of any city ' s visitor economy. Helsinki itself was a fitting host. Clean, considered, quietly confident. A city that earns trust without demanding it.
A knowledge alliance in full voice I’ ve been around enough industry gatherings to know the difference between an event that talks about knowledge-sharing and one that actually delivers it. The sessions were substantive,
Barbara Jamison-Woods
Marie-Louise Schnurpfeil
the conversations in the coffee breaks no less so, and the willingness of members to be genuinely open, including about failure, was refreshing.
That openness is very much by design, according to Barbara Jamison-Woods, the current president of CityDNA.““ We’ ve covered lots of topics that are really relevant to our DMOs, which is the reason that we meet. It has given a platform to our knowledge groups – whether that’ s sustainability, research and insights – and we’ ve developed some of the work they’ re doing,” she said.
But for Jamison-Woods, the standout theme of Helsinki was trust.“ One of the big focuses this year was really about the trust between our cities,” she said,“ because we are in a period of flux. It ' s very difficult, with the global situation, to plan ahead – whether you’ re organising a marketing campaign, whether you’ re looking at investment, whether you ' re looking at what direction you’ re going to be going in within your cities.”
That fragility of forward planning is familiar to anyone who has tried to map a three-year strategy against a geopolitical backdrop that seems to rewrite itself quarterly. What struck me in Helsinki was that it wasn’ t
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