Creating a resilient business events sector through collaboration

Intended as a conversation starter for the events community and industry in a post-Covid-19 world, the white paper identifies the main roles that will define national convention bureaux in the future, the challenges to be tackled in order to create sustainable value, the new players and established partners future national convention bureaux will be collaborating with, and the key qualifications and skills needed to thrive in the coming years. 

Convention bureaux of the future: strategists, facilitators, experts and communicators 
Exploring the future market and stakeholder needs that will impact on the roles and purposes of national convention bureaux, the alliance with 28 national member organisations pinpointed four crucial roles around agenda setting and strategy provision for the events industry, facilitating connections between a wide range of communities and sector, providing expert know-how to all stakeholders and serving as communication platforms. 

Rebuilding and future proofing the event ecosystem through partnerships and skills 
With a view to longer term challenges and opportunities, the white paper highlights the need for joint action and collaboration to rebuild the business events ecosystem in a more resilient and sustainable way and suggests the creation of a European Centre for Business Events Data & Knowledge, having identified harvesting, analysing and sharing open data as an area of mutual interest and a key asset for future business intelligence and value creation in the events industry.  

Looking at beneficial relationship with new stakeholders, the authors highlight the Triple Helix model of dynamic university-industry-government interactions as a blueprint to build new ecosystems for knowledge generation, entrepreneurship and innovation. To positively affect outcomes and the cultural development inside and outside organisations, the white paper also stresses the importance of specific soft skills, including user-centric and human-centric thinking or agility, flexibility and resilience, alongside a set of hard skills that cover future strategy, policy, technology and communication needs. 

The “Future Role and Purpose of Convention Bureaux” white paper is available for download here. 

About the Strategic Alliance of the National Convention Bureaux of Europe

The Strategic Alliance of the National Convention Bureaux of Europe is a network of national destination marketing organisations. As a collaborative industry platform, it concentrates on strengthening Europe’s position as a leading destination for international business events. The purpose of the Alliance is to create a beneficial working relationship amongst the national convention bureaux of Europe in order to sustain and further develop the position of Europe. 

The idea of creating synergies and establishing a joint platform for Europe as a destination for business events on the international stage continues to gain traction: Officially announced at IMEX 2014 in Las Vegas with nine founding countries, the Alliance is now a 28-member strong network that has steadily grown over the past couple of years. Since 2014, the Alliance has met twice a year in rotating host destinations. 

www.convention-europe.com