Over 100 association event professionals gathered at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre yesterday for The Meetings Show’s Association Meetings Conference.
Paul Kennedy MBE, Strategic Business Advisor, The Meetings Show opened the conference and described the event as “bringing like-minded people together, to exchange knowledge and foster business relations & development.”
Kennedy went on to say that, “association meetings bring extraordinary economic benefit to the destinations that host them but unfortunately their impact is seriously underestimated by politicians.”
Linda Pereira, Conference Chair and Executive Director, CPL Events said the conference is a “great platform to bring together a group of people that really need to create a dialogue.”
“We PCOs tend to spend most of our time competing for business and not actually talking to the people whose business we should be developing,” she said. “Many associations don’t know exactly what we do and so they are still doing it the old fashioned way. This event serves as a platform to create a much needed dialogue between all parties.”
Over 20 industry professionals spoke at the Conference, including Dan Rivlin, CEO, Kenes Group; Joanna Lawlor, Global Events Director, AstraZeneca; Mark Handforth, Director, Compliant Venues; Kerrin MacPhie, Director of Sales, ACC Liverpool; and Aileen Crawford, Head of Conventions, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau.