The Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC) announced that they have created a new web site at http://www.themeetingsindustry.org/ to facilitate the distribution of resource materials for the "Profile and Power  industry awareness program and to act as an ongoing source of information about community and government relations activities for the meetings industry.

The objective of the "Profile and Power  program is to improve the position and influence of the industry by improving community and government awareness of the importance of what the meetings industry does and the benefits it creates for host communities.

"As an industry, we’ve suffered for some time from the fact that we have a very low profile relative to other sectors  said JMIC President Barbara Maple.

"Because of this, we’ve had little ability to influence events and decisions affecting our future, and the importance of this became very obvious during the global security problems and economic turmoil of the last few years. The purpose of this program is to provide support and encouragement for industry members to be more aggressive in promoting our sector and the significant benefits it generates to both governments and the communities it serves".

The "Profile and Power  program is based on the principal that the best way to achieve increased awareness of the meetings industry and its benefits is through a "bottom up  approach based on the actions of individual members working in their own communities.

"The people in our industry typically work very independently, so this kind of program can only succeed if they see the benefits of raising awareness of what they do in their own communities", said Maple. "Our job is to help them do that by supporting, encouraging and recognizing their individual achievements in this regard".

JMIC has taken three steps to date:

• It has recommended the adoption of a single, unifying name - "The Meetings Industry  - to replace the proliferation of names now in use that only serves to confuse those outside the industry.
• It has prepared a promotional "tool kit  for association members, including a guidebook for community awareness activities, a list of key promotional messages and themes and a series of template articles, ads and presentations which can be adapted for local use. These materials are all posted on the web site and can be downloaded for use by industry members.
• It is developing an industry awards program to recognize member achievements in community and government relations activities and share promotional ideas and successes.

Future initiatives being considered include the establishment of a "Meetings Industry Week" to provide a focus for individual activities and the creation of an industry forum that would bring together industry representatives with key local and senior government decision-makers.

In addition to the overall JMIC web site, individual member associations are implementing program activities through their own communications activities. "We’ve had presentations on the program to industry organizations and conferences all over the world, and program materials are being translated into various languages so that they will be more useful to different groups and regions", said Maple.