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Martin Sirk, CEO International Congress and Convention Association, ICCA
For your 50th Annual Congress from 22 to 26 October 2011 you have chosen Leipzig, Germany – not Berlin, Brussels, Paris or London? Why?
As always it was a competitive bid process – any ICCA members from a region that didn’t host the Congress the previous year can apply, and usually we have to choose between at least six bids from three continents! Leipzig won against tough competition from the other shortlisted destinations: Dubai/Abu Dhabi and Pittsburgh in the USA. I can’t say exactly why our individual Board members voted the way they did, but I can give my own impressions of the quality of the bid.
Firstly, the written bid was simply the most professional document of its kind that has passed over my desk in the last ten years: every key decision-making criterion was addressed comprehensively and creatively. German teamwork was particularly noteworthy – ICCA members from all over the country and from different industry sectors actually wrote the different chapters in the bid document, so that for example the explanation of why the host venue was suitable for our needs was written by a PCO who uses Leipzig for many major clients, rather than being written by the venue staff.
Leipzig’s final presentation was also extremely powerful: they made the case that this was not simply a question of coming to a “secondary” German city, it was a highly symbolic decision, representing our first Congress to take place behind where the “Iron Curtain” had previously divided Europe – the bidding team explained Leipzig’s critical role in pushing through German reunification and the collapse of the Communist block. This strong emotional appeal added to the already strong technical aspects of the bid.
What are your expectations for this year’s General Assembly and Annual Congress?
That we will have a simply exceptional congress! Already our registrations have overtaken the previous second-highest attendance, and we are expecting to attract about 1,100 delegates, 10% more than the previous record. We have a great line-up of speakers from amongst our members, from our client communities, and including many outside experts. We’ve invested more than ever in our technical support and networking tools, not least because having bigger numbers means that we need to focus even more strongly on making the networking operate efficiently. Finally, we know how excited our German members are to be hosting this event, and their plans for the social side of the Congress are looking really very special indeed.
Please share with us your top three challenges for ICCA these days?
Our focus on the international association meetings sector, the most resilient in the meetings industry, and our spread of membership all around the world mean that we have been less affected by the current economic turmoil than many other organisations, but it is still a fact that the uncertainty about the future economic and financial environment is making forward planning exceedingly difficult. We operate on tight financial parameters even in good times, and although we’ve not yet had a negative year’s results, we’re always conscious that it wouldn’t take much to knock our plans off course.
The second big challenge is to keep our members up to date with our ever-evolving range of services. Everyone is under so much time pressure these days that getting individuals to log into our database to see the new functionalities, or to download the PR Kit to enhance their PR work, or to sign up for (often complimentary) networking events, is getting more and more difficult. Emails aren’t getting read, social media sites are getting overcrowded, bosses are demanding more and more frequent updates, so making the time to really squeeze out the full value of membership in an association is not at all easy. We’re constantly working on new ways to get members engaged, but it’s going to be a never-ending job!
The third big challenge is in personalisation – at Congresses and in terms of supplying member services in general. Ultimately we want to identify each member’s profile, objectives, working methods, and other key considerations, and deliver the best ICCA services, products and tools to help them win more business. At the Congress it means providing not just a great choice of sessions, but also lots of consultancy sessions where delegates can address their own individual needs. We’re introducing all kinds of exciting ways to achieve these goals, but to be really successful we need to also change the mindset of delegates, making sure that they become proactive participants during meetings, not passive audience members. That’s a tough challenge!
Which main trends in the convention industry do you observe that are relevant for international associations?
Personalisation is for me the big issue, as I discussed above. Budgets are being cut, especially in terms of sponsorship, so I also think that associations need to be experimenting far more in new financial models for their major events. Delegates aren’t prepared to spend long times away from their regular work, so I think that the challenge here is less about reducing the length of meetings and more about increasing the efficiency of meetings, cramming them full of value and at the same time making it extremely easy for delegates to keep up with their regular work whilst they are attending the Congress. Free WiFi everywhere should be the new normal to help delegates achieve this seamless connectivity with their home offices.
How do you assist congress organisers in international associations?
We’re always delighted to assist individual association executives who need advice on which ICCA members to contact for their future meeting needs, and we of course work very closely with IMEX, EIBTM and other trade shows on their association programmes. We’re currently working on some very exciting plans to enable international associations to access areas of the ICCA Database, to help them with forward planning, but more importantly to help connect them with fellow international associations whose experience is relevant for their future congress plans.
On your website you run a section 'Associations'. What’s behind it?
At the moment there are lots of resources on areas that can assist international associations in dealing with ICCA members and in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their events. There are publications ranging from how to design a more effective Congress bid process to how to negotiate effectively with hotels; there are many short articles on areas such as using technology and risk assessment issues.
However, we’ll be significantly boosting the range of information available over the coming 12 months, as we use this area of our website to aggregate interesting case studies on association events from all of ICCA’s media members, and as we roll out our access to the ICCA database and the new opportunities for connectivity between the association executives. We want ICCA to become even more widely recognised as the most useful, objective source of practical advice for international associations on all of their meetings issues, and our investment plans have this as one of our key objectives.
The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) represents the main specialists in organising, transporting and accommodating international meetings and events, and comprises over 950 member companies and organisations in 87 countries worldwide. www.iccaworld.com