As New Zealand entered Alert Level 3 on April 28th, so construction has restarted on WCEC (the Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre). Already slightly ahead of schedule, the 18,000 square metre venue is the capital’s first premium space for conferences and exhibitions. WCEC has also announced a virtual layout planning tool. From Boardroom…
AIPC (the International Association of Convention Centres), an Iceberg partner, has appointed its first CEO. Prior to the move, Sven Bossu had previously been MD for Innovation at ESTRO (the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology). He is also known for a stretch at SWIFT, where he was responsible for SIBOS. From Boardroom…
Less than one month after Iceberg partner ICCA and CIMERT (Center of International Meetings Research and Training) began studying the effects of COVID-19 on the events industry, a first report has been released. The document maps pandemic impact on meetings across the world. From Association Meetings International…
The Iceberg is sorely missing a wide range of cancelled industry events. We’re also sorely missing the cheery Martin Sirk selfie posted from all of them. Fortunately, the International Advisor of our partner the Global Association Hubs Partnership has recorded a podcast. From editor’s blog at Association Meetings International…
Event professionals will need to have a flexible mindset and to adapt and evolve business practice in a world after the pandemic. So said Patrick Smith, Senior Vice President and CMO of Cvent, during EduMonday on PlanetIMEX, Iceberg partner IMEX Group’s new virtual platform. From Meetings International…
What might face-to-face meetings with neither a coronavirus vaccine nor effective treatment look like? Perhaps signing a waiver releasing the organiser from liability, an initial COVID-19 test and then daily checks of temperature? Those are some of the requirements of Metrock’s Voice of Healthcare Summit 2020 set for Boston this August. From PCMA…
European Cities Marketing has just published “The DMMO COVID-19 Continuity Checklist” (posted in Research). In an exclusive webinar the Iceberg partner’s co-publisher Toposophy guides you through the document, with news of projects across Amsterdam, Barcelona and Hamburg as well. From European Cities Marketing…
Trade associations have a vital role to play in helping the industry and wider world to recover as pandemic lockdowns end. So there is real and pressing work now for them to do. The association champion Jennifer Jenkins is PCO Lead and Director at the British agency Worldspan. From Association Meetings International…
“The new normal” is an irritating phrase that has entered common parlance since lockdown measures began to contain further spread of COVID-19. While the transition to virtual events is a “new normal” we can take seriously, not much else of the “new normal” is “normal” at all. From editor’s blog at Association Meetings International…
Adapt, survive, thrive. Not a choice, but a necessity in the future. So says Smyle Founder and Group Executive Director Rick Stainton, here offering a long-range view on assessing the current economic conditions, lower delegate appetite for business travel, and the role in the mix of virtual and hybrid. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
As the COVID-19 crisis has persisted, so has came the slow realisation that its impact will linger a very long time indeed. What does this mean for the exhibition sector in the future? Reed Exhibition’s former Chairman and CEO Mike Rusbridge, and former Commercial Director Nick Forster, offer thoughts. From UFI…
As the world’s population grows, the percentage of people living in cities is rising steadily. The future success of humanity is therefore more and more tied to, and even defined by, the future success of the city as a model. In that, of course, business events have a critical role to play. Professor Greg Clark has…
Australia’s business events landscape is surveyed here in a rich collection of articles. BESydney’s Lyn Lewis-Smith, ICC Sydney’s Geoff Donaghy, ACC’s Simon Burgess, MCEC’s Peter King, Brisbane Marketing’s Juliet Alabaster, plus the team behind JMIC’s (the Joint Meetings Industry Council’s) case studies, all offer up viewpoints. From Meetings International…
When President Nelson Mandela opened the Durban ICC in 1997, it was South Africa’s first international convention centre. It has since then been voted “Africa’s Leading Meetings and Conference Centre” by the World Travel Awards no fewer than seventeen times. But some of the venue’s greatest legacies lie in environmental sustainability. From Boardroom…
In 2017 Iceberg partner European Cities Marketing, in partnership with Toposophy, published eight bold statements in The Future of DMOs: The ECM Manifest that set out a vision for what DMOs (destination marketing organisations) could and should become. The final of these statements warned of ‘‘The New Normal’’, a world in which ‘‘crises of every kind have…
COVID-19 has disrupted many things, including our sense of time. While the period of quarantining might seem interminable, our current reality and attempts to plan for the future have never been more fluid. The business events landscape used to take months and months to change. With the pandemic, it changed overnight and continues to evolve,…
Working jointly with the Business Visits & Events Partnership (BVEP), PR agency Davies Tanner created a short survey of the UK events industry, designed to assist venues, destinations and other key sector suppliers in planning recovery activity after the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey is designed to provide a snapshot of sentiment across the UK business…
In the weeks since the coronavirus outbreak has ravaged the industry, event professionals right across the globe have been uniting in the fight against the pandemic. Competitors have grouped together to provide expertise where most needed, like Live for Life and Go LIVE Together in the US, and also Events4Covid19 in Portugal. From EventMB…
38 percent of the UK events industry believes enquiries and bookings will start to surge back in September. So says the recently published Business Events Sentiment survey, created by PR agency Davies Tanner with the Business Visits & Events Partnership. 556 sector professionals across the UK contributed. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
In a move sure to be replicated across all destination marketing, the Azerbaijan Tourism Board (ATB), partnering with the country’s State Tourism and Food Safety Agencies, has launched SAHMAN (Sanitation and Hygiene Methods and Norms). PwC is to audit the initiative, which will cover all aspects of tourism. From Meetings International…
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