Exhibition World Issue 4 — 2020 | Page 24

JMIC campaign Learning to speak with one voice Paul Colston summarises the recent Joint Meetings Industry Council’s global webinar series that has been driving its new 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 web 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 at a time when the business events sector must 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 been undertaken to remind the world what it had been missing these past few months. The contributors had reinforced the core Iceberg message of the 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 reminded us: “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 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 also 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, 24 Issue 4 2020 www.exhibitionworld.co.uk