Don’t sweat the logistics, focus on the client’s objectives. That was the message that meetings guru Bo Kruger delivered to delegates at the inaugural International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) UK & Ireland chapter debate.
The meeting at the Brighton Centre attracted more than 60 attendees from convention bureaus and venues.
Kruger, from Denmark-based Moving Minds, said that all clients are not alike and many like to be challenged about the content of their event.
He said: “Sales and marketing people at convention bureaus and venues think too much about what’s for lunch and not enough about the meeting content. They should ask clients about their objectives and then show how they can help them to be met. That’s what using Meeting Design ideas is about.”
Lesley Williams, head of business tourism at Convention Edinburgh, said she would tell her bureau members about the concepts of how to engage meeting attendees but would be reluctant to tell clients.
She said: “In the association sector clients tend to be academics and they like the classroom format. It is what they are used to.”
Sarah Fleming, boss at Sarah Fleming Associates, said the Meeting Design concept was not very useful to the sales and marketing people at the event.
She said: “Sales and marketing people and event managers work fairly autonomously. The sales team are involved early in the process but are too remote from the event to influence the content.”
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