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The Power of GLobal Connections: ICCA's Impact on the Events Industry
33 Plays6 months ago
We sat down with ICCA's regional directors for Europe to learn more about ICCA and how it impacts our industry.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Event for Encounters'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Event for Encounters, I'm Sunita. Hi and I'm Leanne and today we have um a session which is the power of global connections, ICA's impact on the events
Meet the Regional Directors: Effie and Thomas
00:00:10
Speaker
industry. So we are at the ICA UK and I chapter meeting in Leeds and we are joined by... Effie and Thomas who are regional directors for Europe and ICA.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'll let you explain what you guys do, you'll probably do a better job of that. Yeah, of course. please so yeah, we are here. We are happy to meet you and we are joining the chapter meeting Leeds.
00:00:35
Speaker
So we are the regional directors for Europe. We are overlooking of almost 56 countries for ica which is the the most well-known platform for the association meetings and the meeting meetings industry worldwide, so we are in the national community and we are taking care of like 500 companies that are based in Europe.
00:01:01
Speaker
yeah So yeah, um I would say 500 members yeah rather than labeling them as a companies as such. It's a community um of various venues,
00:01:12
Speaker
Congress organizers and meeting support sort of facilitators, so AV companies or yeah anything like that really. But yeah, I'm Thomas, I recently joined ICA two months ago with the team and yeah, excited to work with Effie together in strengthening Europe's, yeah. ICA relationship. Relationship.
What is ICA?
00:01:36
Speaker
So just going back a step there, what is ICA and how does it support the events, meeting and events industry?
00:01:43
Speaker
ICA is a platform, so cannot define it only if we we should choose only one way to define what we do. We are a platform. So we are one of the first ones that started in this industry 60 years ago.
00:01:56
Speaker
So we are redefining ourselves ah every year and post-COVID, of course, the challenges are are are we yeah yeah for our industry. But we are an members-based that we are advocating for the meetings industry.
00:02:12
Speaker
for that We are a knowledge platform where that we are advocating for the knowledge that the associations, association meetings brings and the value that they bring apart from the tourism effect, beyond the tourism. so we we want We work also with government, we we work work with tourist boards in order to open the discussion on how we can we should advocate all of us for the meat-ex industry.
00:02:37
Speaker
So this is the broader scope of of of what we do, it's advocacy level. And apart from this, we are providing very value value to our members. This is through education, which is like The events are educational capsules for us, for networking also, what we do here, no we meet each other, we build community.
00:02:58
Speaker
So, and i don't know what you want to add. I mean, you've pretty much said it all, to be honest. But no, I think it was just to add on to it. you know We've got various other industry organisations that also obviously do the same advocacy, but what is important and I think what is clear and what we identified in the UK, especially during COVID, was that it isn't recognised as an industry as a whole. you know And I think that's what our position opposition but we play as an organisation is to get organisations and governments to understand what we yeah do as an industry.
00:03:33
Speaker
what associations can bring to a city and a destination, what legacy and impact can be provided, and that is the advocacy element of it, but also trying to get universities and sort of, ah let's say, graduates or first time workers to basically um Yeah, know what we do. I think when we say at associations or business events, people don't really know what that means. and it's so different yeah And for us, it's to get that word out to say Leeds Beckett University or let's say the Amsterdam universities, so those institutions um where they are studying business management or even events management to try and you know get them interested in our field.
00:04:14
Speaker
Yeah. so yeah You mentioned there Effie that the the landscape of the meeting and events industry has changed massively since post COVID. How has ICA's role changed and following that and how do you see it changing in the future?
ICA's Global Leadership and Future Vision
00:04:30
Speaker
We are leaders in our industry and this is how we are still believe that we are leading the industry right now globally, but we are having huge transformations and this starts from our members. So what we want, what we are doing right now, it's of course, i mean, the main challenge is like keeping up with the technology transformation, the innovation that we need to bring in our membership through our business intelligence platform because our main, one of the main main like assets that we have for our ah Membership is a a huge database that we started like 60 years ago collecting data.
00:05:04
Speaker
So imagine the value of what we have there. And of course, we we we want to work more with technology
The Role of Technology and AI in Meetings
00:05:11
Speaker
on that. So this is something new that we're going to to launch shortly.
00:05:15
Speaker
we want to bring more technology, more AI. this ah and And of course, the conversation about sustainability, which is, I would say that it's like technology that sometimes some years ago before COVID, everybody was talking about technology like a pillar.
00:05:29
Speaker
The same thing so happened with sustainability, it started as a pillar and now it goes horizontal to every strategy. So we see that and we get a lot of context from what are venues, because most of the membership that we have, it's mostly destinations and venues.
00:05:44
Speaker
And then we have followed by by other categories. so We are in an open conversation with our members in order to understand what are their needs and and there is a lot of learning, peer learning between the venues um and thery between the regions also.
00:05:59
Speaker
So for example, what is happening right now in Asia in terms of the venues, is ah is a huge knowledge and value of value for the European venues. So this is what the... like sharing the knowledge. except Exactly.
00:06:13
Speaker
So like in terms of that, just to latch on to that and that's more on the the Asian sort of side, especially like Singapore, they're focusing heavily on well-being and and they're creating quite a lot of um let's say noise in that side, but they also want to learn on or lean on our expertise from the European side of things. So there's this knowledge exchange between those two. The Latin American counterparts, they are focusing on the leg earth impact and and sustainability elements now. So there's there's a lot of different things happening within the global space of ICA, and it's quite a difficult like question to answer yeah because there's so much happening from a
00:06:52
Speaker
It's not a regional focus, it is a global focus and we need to look at what both is happening on those other regions but then also seeing what the European membership wants but then how we can facilitate that conversation with our other partners within Africa, North America so and stuff like that. also the European community is not a very... it's not that we have different challenges and different levels of advocacy between our country members.
00:07:17
Speaker
yeah So we are talking about Germany, let's say, which is a very mature destination industry-wise, and we're having new joiners in the industry and that we won't like to onboard them, and we have a different level of conversation on how they're going to start the journey, like Uzbekistan, let's say. So these are all European, belong to the European community that we're having.
00:07:42
Speaker
but all at different stages in the journey, aren't they? Which I suppose is why ICC is so valuable because you can share that cross collaboration from, and the knowledge sharing from different hubs. For instance, Tanita and I, this is our second UK and I chapter meeting that we've been to But we also, we didn't get to go to the World Congress last year, unfortunately, but we did go to the one the year before in Bangkok. And we said, like, the knowledge that we learned from that event, you know, and it was invaluable really to us. And we've definitely, as a venue, been able to grow our association's business globally.
00:08:14
Speaker
Purely from the knowledge that we've gained from being ICCA members and also the ICCA network as well like we were saying we yeah last night we went to the networking event and actually we know so many people now in the echoca community and it's really nice and you can share best practice from you know um from the across the different cities as well so obviously we're based in Birmingham but you know we know the team from Liverpool really well so then we feel that we can share that knowledge so I know you've talked about a few trends that are kind of um happening across the world but what would you say are the top trends that you see coming into Europe at the moment that shaping the international events, association events?
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think um if I can start off, I think one of the big so things that you do see is that the obviously we're going to use this word it for a couple of days now, but AI, obviously there's yeah dabbling dabbling in that. I think people are becoming, or at least the associations are becoming more receptive in terms of being able to play around with it and just toy around with it, seeing how that can be utilized best. And I think we have a voice to play in this. And I think Effie mentioned it and said that We are investing in that as an organization as well. We an association too.
00:09:26
Speaker
So we understand some of the pain pain points that other associations will are facing. yeah So by adopting um AI in both maybe doing, you know, like using it to maybe do automation or something like that, or doing some tasks that you may may find, ah you know, that we've had to maybe outsource previously from a cost perspective.
00:09:46
Speaker
we can potentially even start utilizing that internally. So that saves already a cost. There's a cost element that you can can you know save using AI. But I also think um micro events is becoming quite a big thing at Congresses. Micro events. Explain these. So an idea is something where, you know, like multi-venue events, like it's what's happening at Eka and Leeds today. Yeah.
00:10:11
Speaker
where if you had to say use a tram between journey, well, point A and point B, why not facilitate a micro event in the bus or in the tram or in the, yeah, so do you like a soapbox or a pitching event within that, uh, transport kind of wasted time. Correct and you don't lose people on route. So you you you facilitate that period of transport to make a pitch.
00:10:34
Speaker
um So that is sort of, I've i've heard of this sort of like being you know toyed around with corporate events, but I think this would be something that could potentially translate quite well into an association event.
00:10:46
Speaker
Say a venue might not be big enough to facilitate a all the events so when you have to use ah your creative hat you could maybe do these sort of micro events within the the transport section the section that cover or even within your expo section where you do a micro event there but i don't know if you've got anything else to add from your side i think No, but I wouldn't, yeah, it's like I don't i don't consider sustainability and technology factor like as a trend. I think it's that's why I have difficulties in defining what is a trend right now.
00:11:16
Speaker
I think that um what we are trying to do, as you have experienced, and hopefully you will join again, this year the AICA Congress at Porto because it's very important. It's coming back in Europe. It's and ah it's not a first-tier city, second-tier city. We're taking over the city as a venue, so we'll design something very original there.
00:11:37
Speaker
and So maybe this is also a trend, know getting getting out of some of the big cities and going to small destinations. So um although connectivity always has been like the main the main i had heard the destination background, at the first thing that the association asked, it's about how how we're going getting there.
00:11:57
Speaker
But now this barrier I think it's not so important, so the associations and the communities want to go to new destinations and and they are willing to go there. So you will see Porto we will try to design, we will intend to design a program that is cross-sectoral, so we want to learn First of all, we want to let from you, from our members, you will see many members that will will be on stage yeah yeah and challenging and sharing what they they what what they are experiencing in their venue, in their destination, and looking together for common solutions and also cross-sector to bring other sectors and join the conversation.
00:12:33
Speaker
So we are not a silo, we are not a meetings industry all of our own there. and having the conversation between us. We want to work with other, with the startups, we want to talk with the universities.
00:12:44
Speaker
So these different tracks that we're going to build with culture and arts, how we can be more creative in how we design events, So this conversation, I think it's ah the opening the conversation, it's the innovative aspect that we want to bring and hopefully it's not a trend, but it's a change of culture. Yeah, love that.
00:13:02
Speaker
Very good. and And obviously the role of technology. So we touched on the fact that we've talked about AI. obviously it was the last ICO event, wasn't it, where you did a session on AI as well?
00:13:15
Speaker
yeah This is Adam the producer by the way. Oh yeah sorry Adam. but Adam did a session last time on AI and actually we've kind of learned, I think a lot of people are scared around ai and but I do think that there is a place for AI in the events industry because like you said especially with associations sometimes they can be quite small associations and actually and adding an an element of AI into their events can really help kind of with manpower and trying to get tasks done that can be quite timely for the team. It can make them more efficient. So how do both feel about technology in associations events?
00:13:50
Speaker
So I spoke at the previous Congress about augmentation and augmented reality and mixed reality experiences. um And the conversations, just to sort of go back a little bit, I think the AI conversation happened way too late in our sector, in the association sector. People in the corporate sector and corporate events and all of that were already toying with it and playing around with it far sooner. Correct. And now we're starting to dabble in it. But um talking about adoption or actually playing around with it, I think it is crucial because you otherwise are left behind yeah
AI in Association Events: Innovative Approaches
00:14:22
Speaker
and you're not then seen as innovative. And by the time then you're perceived as innovative,
00:14:26
Speaker
They're on to the next thing. It's already the next thing. And I think it is crucial for everyone to at least play around in a safe sandbox, if you wish, to then see what the opportunities are. And I, with the augmentation and with ah mixed reality, I think in the future, as we heard today in the neurodiversity talk, the implications and applications of even that is going to be incredible by finding, doing wayfinding, by offering people opportunities to find areas, to to to to find a quiet zone.
00:14:56
Speaker
identify people they want to speak to. That's an augmentation, but that's driven by AI as well. So yeah um I think it's imperative in our sector to start playing around sooner rather than later.
00:15:07
Speaker
And as Efi has alluded to, that the organization ourselves are trying to now look into how we can implement this on an organizational level too. So sort of being the, don't want to say the the forerunner, but at least, you know, showing, but yeah,
00:15:23
Speaker
And to add, I mean, a very good example is that we're having now, pre-IMEX, we're having the Association Expert Seminar. yeah i want to make yeah so And we have a very interesting, i mean, I'm not the one designing the content, of course, we have other colleagues that they are doing so, but it's about AI and how you can design more inclusive events using AI. yeah that' interested yeah And it's very interesting. So we are receiving very good comments from, so we we are,
00:15:51
Speaker
We are targeting, we have some events like this one, of the content is in every event that we're doing, we are including some content about and technology and the future of healthcare, for example, which is another flagship event that we are we're having this every year in Europe.
00:16:09
Speaker
So again, so and ai is part of what we design in every in every event. It's on our lips on every conversation, as it should be. And I think yeah it's it's important to talk about it, but also action it as well, rather than, you know, we don't want to be in the suit. that yeah of not doing any and did anything actionable, if if for lack of a better word.
00:16:32
Speaker
It needs to be takeaways, people need to be able to have actionable things to actually implement in their organisations once they leave the events. But I think we deviated from your question. It's okay, it was insightful, so it's absolutely And then ICA, um how is
ICA's Future Plans and Cultural Change
00:16:49
Speaker
ICA evolving? So what are the plans for ICA over the next 12 months?
00:16:53
Speaker
Just to drop a massive question at the end. I feel like obviously you said... As much as you can share. I mean, I would say watch this space. Yeah. That's all I can really say. I think our Congress is going to be, and I think it's going to be showcasing which direction organization is going towards and what the vision is.
00:17:12
Speaker
But I'd say watch this space. There's a lot going to be happening. You know, we're listening to the members. We're listening to the, you know, stakeholders. Yeah. and you know Everyone wants to change, everyone wants to see the organization grow and I think we're on that path to doing that.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, and also mean associations like per se, they are very heavy and like slow in transformations, they're not very corporate business egg world. so if we are going to go and And this happens for so so for a reason, so we are a member based association these transformations cannot happen as quick as in the corporate world. I think this is good and this is bad, at the same time you need to change but but in a way that you can absorb these changes and there is a cultural change that you should do know to become like like more um quick, no let's say, which is the first challenge.
00:18:03
Speaker
Most associations they are slow in decision making and implementing so these are common challenges We are an association working for associations, so we have the same same i have with cash so It's a DNA that we are that this has is being the transport transforming right now through what is happening so we want to be to have a cultural change and become more innovative and more But it takes time.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, but it takes time. It is with everything. It is with everything. True. So like Thomas said, watch this space. Indeed. Indeed. Well, we're big advocates of Vicar, aren't we? We've had great experiences since we became members. We utilise the platform, you know, in the database regularly, don't we? We get lost in it. Yeah, we get lost in it.
00:18:47
Speaker
That's the only thing. We have to set timer and say, right, this is how much time I spent on the database. But, and you know, we've definitely recommended, like, the chapter meeting to people today. And actually, somebody that I recommended the chapter meeting to last year is here today. So I think it's great that, you know, and the members kind of help and become advocates for the association as well.
00:19:06
Speaker
But and thank you so much, both of you, for your time and the insights into ICA. um I think there's so much that, you know, our listeners can learn from listening to the podcast and getting a bit of an understanding. Associations can be a bit of a minefield. You know, it can be quite a complex topic, but it's one that we're really passionate about, isn't it? And we get very excited about associations. The littlest things.
00:19:27
Speaker
Definitely. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thanks for listening. as always, step date with all things Eventful Encounters and these side rooms. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
00:19:40
Speaker
Eventful Encounters is available on Amazon, Apple is Spotify. Thank you. Bye. Bye.