Ireland celebrated the success of 109 Conference Ambassadors at the most recent CARA (Conference Ambassadors Recognition Awards) gala evening in Dublin, recognising academics and business leaders who were responsible for attracting major international association conferences to the country during the years 2023 and 2024. Highlights of the evening were two Spotlight Awards, for Sustainability and Social Impact, and the Ambassador of the Year Award, which went to Prof Cathal Gurrin, in recognition of his work on the 45th European Conference on Information Retrieval.
A More Intelligent and Intentional Subvention Policy
Fáilte Ireland used the evening to highlight Ireland’s new subvention framework for international conferences hosted in Ireland. Moving away from the previous approach that was primarily focused on delegate numbers, the new model includes significantly upweighted financial support, and ties this to targets related to seasonality, regionality, use of local supply chains, and particularly sustainability and social impact.
Fáilte Ireland will work with Ambassadors to intentionally insert these elements into conference bids from the very first stages, recognising that associations are increasingly motivated by bids that align with their mission and demonstrate a partnership capable of generating concrete, societally-valuable impacts, both within the host country and worldwide.
The new framework enables Ireland to more effectively align the interests of national and local policymakers, industry and economic sectoral players (including in start-up ecosystems and high-tech fields), academia, and the business events sector itself. Importantly, this reinforces perceptions of Business Events as so much more important than as a segment of the visitor economy.
Ireland’s new strategic framework will help their Conference Ambassadors build intentional social impact into their bids
Rewarding Meetings-Generated Societal Value
Illustrating this change of focus, the Sustainability Spotlight Award went to Prof Niamh Moore Cherry and Prof Frances Fahy for the 35th International Geographical Congress, whilst the Social Impact Spotlight Award went to Dr Lyndsey El Amoud for the 54th European University Continuing Education Network Annual Conference. All the winners highlighted the importance of building social and sustainability impacts into the earliest bidding and planning stages of the event, and the enormous personal and professional value that comes from being a Fáilte Ireland Conference Ambassador.
Paul Mockler, Head of Commercial Development Division at Fáilte Ireland also announced Ireland’s unprecedented winning of the top two ICCA Incredible Impacts Awards in 2025, recognising WONCA and Autism Europe, both of which generated substantial local and worldwide social impact. Mockler linked this success to Fáilte Ireland’s dynamic Conference Ambassador Programme and the evening’s honorees, given that over 75% of international association conferences involve the active participation of an Irish Ambassador.
About Fáilte Ireland
As the National Tourism Development Authority, Fáilte Ireland supports the long-term sustainable growth in the economic, social, cultural and environmental contribution of tourism to Ireland. ‘Meet in Ireland’ is the official business events brand for the island of Ireland. It facilitates a partnership between Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland to promote the island of Ireland overseas as a world class business events destination. Ireland’s new business events strategy, ‘Business Events 2030’, is a product of collaboration between the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and industry leaders from the tourism sector.
Further Reading:
Fáilte Ireland Case Study Series:
Case Study #1: TRANSFORMING RURAL HEALTH: A Tale of 3 Meetings
Case Study #2: IGC 2024 Dublin: Celebrating a World of Difference, Creating a Lasting Legacy
Case Study #3: International Newborn Brain Conference 2024 – Protecting the Newborn Brain
