The 51st ICCA Congress closed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 24 October, with MeetTaiwan scooping the Best Marketing Award for developing its ‘Shake and Share’ free meetings app which the bureau claims, has saved meeting planners €420,000 to date.
The Congress’s other prestigious award went to VisitOslo’s Convention Director Anne Wallin Rødven (pictured with ICCA President Arnaldo Nardone), who picked up the Moises Shuster Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to ICCA and the international meetings industry.
Wallin Rødven served on the ICCA Board of Directors between 2002 and 2007, chairing the Destination Marketing Sector and championing the role of convention bureaus.
ICCA President Arnaldo Nardone, presenting the award at the gala dinner, said: “Anne is recognised not only as a consummate professional, but is above all a warm and friendly colleague, always willing to share her experience and knowledge, and constantly acting as a mentor to young future leaders. She has been a tremendous leader and role model in ICCA’s Scandinavian Chapter, a source of creative and progressive thinking on the ICCA Board of Directors, and someone who I am honoured to count as my friend.”
ICCA also launched its 50 years anniversary campaign at the closing session of the 51st Congress.
The anniversary celebration will last through the year and will end at the 2013 ICCA Congress in Shanghai, China.
The launch unveiled a dedicated logo and website, an interactive history timeline, with pages where ICCA members can share theirICCA Congress memories, social media campaigns, and video interviews with dozens of members.
There will also be new activities at the ICCA Research, Sales and Marketing Programme in ICCA’s HQ city Amsterdam in June, and at all other events and tradeshows where ICCA is present throughout 2013. ICCA will also mark its milestone by publishing a special edition of its international association meetings Statistics Report.
Nardone added: “It’s important to celebrate such big anniversaries and the many successes of the past, but this campaign is just as relevant to ICCA’s future. We want to demonstrate the incredible value that is generated by long-term membership, and celebrate the unchanged vision of ICCA’s founders that sharing information and building partnerships with colleagues around the world are far more powerful than working in lonely isolation. I am sure that ‘ICCA 50’ will generate a fresh understanding amongst our members about the true value of belonging to our association.”
ICCA CEO Martin Sirk added: “This anniversary gives us a great platform for the next stage in ICCA’s evolution. During 2013 we’re projecting that we will pass the 1,000 member mark, so we’ll be investing in numerous projects to deliver more customised and personalised services, andwe’ll also be rolling out a major upgrade to our services for international association meeting planners. It’s vital that as we continue to grow we retain the personal engagement that has been a hallmark of ICCA membership for half a century.”
The concept of ICCA was first agreed by travel agents Moises Shuster from Mexico, Jean Claude Murat and five other travel agents at a meeting in Paris in 1963. The big idea was to take advantage of the expansion of air travel.
Today ICCA has 950 member companies and organisations in nearly 90 countries, and 40 staff working out of six offices in different regions.
This year’s Congress registered 715 delegates, down considerably on the attendance at the 2011 Congress in Leipzig which attracted over 1,000 attendees.
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