FORTNIGHTLY ROUNDUP


The perfect festive feast: turkey, carrot… and the much-maligned Brussels sprout.

In this issue of Business Events World and on The Iceberg our lead story is a video recorded at the recent 56th ICCA Congress in Prague. “The Beyond Tourism Impact of Meetings” in Features will be the first of a series based around ICCA and BestCities Global Alliance’s “Incredible Impacts” initiative. It’s a great introduction to the real dividends of holding business and professional events.

Also in Features (click right), and with ICC Wales opening in 2019… Intellectual Capitals’ fascinating profile of that country’s knowledge economy. As they say there, “croeso”.

At this time of year we should all be thinking of those in greater need than ourselves. So in Opinions (click right), PCMA has listed some of the amazing meals that US convention centres served for free to their communities over Thanksgiving… the last time turkey was on the menu. As we keep repeating, the legacies of business events come in all shapes and sizes.

Also in Opinions… SoolNua’s Pádraic Gilligan continues a session on social media started at IBTM World. He also remembers two industry legends lost in 2017: Paul Flackett and Jane Schuldt. Deborah Sexton explains the timing of her departure from PCMA, the Event rounds up some lessons the industry taught African practitioners in 2017, VisitBritain’s Chairman Steve Ridgway talks Brexit uncertainty, and the thriving Australian convention centre scene shows exactly how the role a major venue needs to play is changing.

In News (click right)… the poster child of Australian convention centres ICC Sydney is publishing a book celebrating its art collection. Yet another creative legacy! Speaking of December birthdays, this star in the East has just celebrated a full year since its opening. I was on the first international site tour in 2015. Its amazing to see what has happened since.

In News as well… a second anniversary progress report from the Global Association Hubs Partnership, the latest on Trump Travel Ban III, the Vanessa Cotton Scholarship winners, MPI partners on a master’s degree in meetings, a change of helm at both the Geneva and Cincinnati convention bureaux, the inaugural Dubai Association Conference takes place, the Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau welcomes six new conference ambassadors or “Kesatria”, World Forum The Hague reopens after renovation, and the IMEX Politicians Forum gets a rebrand as the IMEX Policy Forum.

IMEX has also been offering up some thoughts on what 2018 will bring us. Humanity is the common theme in the coming year’s trends, and CEO Carina Bauer has circulated five of them.

Security: IMEX America took place in the aftermath of the horrific Las Vegas mass shooting.

Anti-tourism, over-tourism and the sharing economy: is it time for the business events sector to pointedly emphasise its distinction from leisure travel?

Women in the industry: will true diversity and equality ever be realised?

The new age of anxiety: work stress and hyper-connected social media frenzies all contributing to poor mental health.

Life 3.0.: what will humanity do when AI and the robots take over?

We’ll have to see whether these themes do indeed shape the coming year for the meetings industry. In the meantime, the warmest greetings of the season from our chilly Iceberg to you all. Deck those exhibition halls with boughs of holly!

Until the next time…

Robert Coren, Curator of The Iceberg

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