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