Launched in 2000, the BestCities Global Alliance is the world’s first and only convention bureau alliance.
BestCities and its partners strive to be recognized internationally for being innovative and setting and delivering the world’s best convention bureau practices for the meetings industry and the world’s best service experience for meeting planners.
With eight partners on five continents, member-partners in the Alliance include Cape Town, Copenhagen, Dubai, Edinburgh, Melbourne, San Juan, Singapore and Vancouver.
Meeting planners who work with BestCities partners have a guarantee of member CVB service levels. Each CVB partner in the BestCities Global Alliance must meet the consortium’s stringent criteria for membership, which aims to meet the needs and exceed the expectations of meeting planners.
Criteria elements include CVB reliability and consistency in service standards, assurance to deliver destination expertise in an honest and professional manner, and maintaining best practices within the field of serving meeting planners and delegates.
In addition, members work together to explore new ideas and opportunities that enhance the meeting experience, work with meeting planners to better understand their evolving needs and provide accurate, relevant and timely responsiveness to client requests.
“For San Juan, membership to the BestCities Global Alliance sets us apart from any other destination on our continent,” stated Ramón Sánchez, EVP and COO, Puerto Rico Convention Bureau.
"Together with our other BestCities partners, we have an industry distinction that demonstrates our commitment and dedication to serving international meeting groups."
"Working with BestCities partners, meeting planner-clients know what to expect in selecting a site or destination for their international congress or convention. BestCities’ unique data, information and best practice exchange process helps planners save valuable time beginning with the initial convention planning stages."
Members of the BestCities Global Alliance are audited prior to inclusion in the consortium. In addition to the requirement of meeting 35 service standards, destinations represented by the partners must also have the facilities, attractions and infrastructure to ensure a successful convention.
“Ensuring that meeting planners can be guaranteed an exceptional international meeting experience as well as providing a consistent level of quality and service excellence to groups who select one or more of our destinations as a meetings or convention location is key to our mission,” stated Jane Vong Holmes, managing director, BestCities Global Alliance.
In exchange, members of the Alliance benefit from access to BestCities’ highly qualified database of international clients and sales leads while adopting and implementing highly regarded Client Service Standards that have been praised by the international meeting community.
In late 2008, the BestCities Global Alliance introduced the first-ever Global Certification Program for a CVB organization. The certification has been approved by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LQRA), a subsidiary of Lloyd’s Register, a global independent risk management and safety assurance organization.
Through a Certificate of Approval verifying each member-CVBs quality management system and service standards, this is the first world-wide certification program for convention bureau organizations.
The accreditation ensures that member-partners have documented policies and procedures in place that support the BestCities charter. This includes serving clients, destination expertise, on-site event services, employee recruitment and selection, employee evaluation and training, subcontracting and record-keeping.
“The BestCities Global Certification is designed to quantify to meeting planners each convention bureau’s quality of service and assets of value,” continued Jane Vong Holmes. “The BestCities seal of approval demonstrates our member’s dedication to client service standards and assurance of the highest level of professionalism and commitment to customer service in the meetings industry.”
All members of the BestCities Global Alliance must comply with the requirements of the BCGA Service Standards.
Benefits of BestCities Global Certification are sound quality systems tailored for convention bureaus, a third party audit and internal audit system, eligibility, evidence of compliance, recognition of standards, opportunities to improve existing processes and a process for continual improvement.
The global quality assurance audit helps convention bureaus establish best international practices, identify training needs, provides valuable benchmarks for comparison against other similar organizations and help make management and staff more accountable.
For more information, visit BestCities
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