Mr Kennedy, the group exhibition director for Reed Travel Exhibitions, operators of a number of trade events, including AIME in Melbourne and EIBTM in Barcelona, says there are a number of emerging destinations forging ahead in the competitive business events arena.
“They are keen to secure association conferences and their novelty factor is putting powerhouse destinations like Australia under pressure,” he said.
Australia has slipped significantly in its market share of international meetings in recent years.
In Australia ahead of the ICCA Assembly in Thailand, Mr Kennedy said there was often a disconnect between what the destination thought the buyer wanted, and sellers needed to be more savvy when it comes to promoting their product.
“For example, the Middle East is a rapidly emerging destination for our sector, but where the Middle East destinations thought the weather or security concerns might be issues for buyers, the reality was those were factors way down the list. Indeed the Middle Eastern destinations such as Dubai, Bahrain, Abu Dhbai and Saudi are among the safest destinations in the world.
“My sense is that destinations where many associations have already held their events need to provide substantially better arguments than ever before to secure repeat business. They need to be really flexible, be open to suggestions from would-be clients and get good support from hotels and tour operators.
“Destinations need to consider the destination drivers for a buyer. These usually include the cost, the ease of access, the quality of the offer and security, but not necessarily in that order. You may well find that Europeans will put a different weight on one aspect, while the Americans will for another. Destinations and venues will claim they are ‘unique’ in terms of one offer or another. The reality is there is very little that is unique and it’s far better to be talking to their key selling points and how they can present a top-class value proposition.”
He said China, India, Argentina and the Middle East, Latin America and parts of eastern Europe were the emerging “hot” destinations for corporate meetings and incentives in what is essentially a buyer’s market due to the amount of choice it offers.
“Barcelona (pictured above) is a good example of a destination that made the most of the legacy of its hosting of the Olympic Games by refreshing and re-invigorating its appeal to the world. It’s continued on ever since 1996 and shows little sign of letting up. They’ve topped the rankings of the ICCA association destination cities in 2005.”
Barcelona is the host city for EIBTM – one of the “big two” global events for the conference and incentive market (IMEX is the other).
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