According to a report issued this week by IMEX, around 25% of all meetings are generated by the public sector.

When this figure is combined with corporate and association meetings called to review Government initiatives, then the true, higher level of political influence on the sector becomes clear.

The report details the findings and discussions that took place at the IMEX Politicians’ Forum in Frankfurt, Germany, during the worldwide exhibition for the meetings, incentive travel and events industry.

The Forum was organised with the help of the EFCT, the European Federation of Conference Towns, and was held under the auspices of JMIC (Joint Meetings Industry Council). It brought 15 local and regional politicians from 10 European countries together with the heads of the meetings industry’s leading associations and IMEX representatives.

The Forum’s Moderator, Michael Hirst, Chairman of the UK Business Tourism Partnership explained to the assembled group, “The global meetings market is high value, high yield, high spend and high quality; [it’s] also highly resilient, sustainable and regenerative, so deserves to be higher on the political agenda.”

The third IMEX Politicians’ Forum saw the politicians hotly debating issues such as security, transportation and community involvement. One of the day’s primary objectives was to achieve widespread understanding of the point that meetings affect local economies in very different ways to tourism. 

Hirst explained that the meetings sector has a very different set of requirements, clients, sales techniques and expectations from those of leisure tourism. He reminded the group that delegates are typically big spenders who spend two or three times more than leisure visitors. He went on to stress that destinations need to understand this ‘conversion’ potential for turning delegates into future leisure visitors.

Talking from personal experience, Mary Power, President and CEO of the US-based Convention Industry Council told the Forum that 9/11 had resulted in some positive changes in the USA. She described how many cities had been forced to develop new commercial and political partnerships when the meetings sector temporarily stalled. Now that the sector has returned to good health, she claimed those relationships are even stronger and more productive.

Speaking about what he had learned from attending the IMEX Politicians’ Forum, Stephan Delaux, Deputy Mahor of Bordeaux in France, said, “It was very interesting to see that meetings are, in fact, a large industry in their own right. They have a very important part to play so we need to keep involving more politicians in these discussions.”