Breakout sessions focus on key development themes for Scotland’s four principal meetings centres

Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow drill down on MICE challenges at #BELS18

At the inaugural Business Events Leaders’ Summit on March 21 at the SEC in Glasgow, delegates were organised into regional sessions to try and solve key MICE challenges.

Facilitated by speakers on the day and specially-selected meetings industry experts, the roundtables convened in the afternoon to focus on high-level strategy.

The outcomes, generated from six randomly-generated questions from the sessions, facilitated by the 12 chairs, were as follows:

Session 1 (Glasgow):

• Q: What collaborations would help facilitate the growth of the business events sector in our region?
• A’s:
  – Closer work between convention bureau and small businesses
  – Better links with producers from Glasgow’s surrounding regions
  – Develop transport infrastructure with support of council and government

• Q: What changes can be made in our region to encourage the growth of business events?
• A’s:
  – A greater use of city theming to support key activities
  – Greater awareness and education to industry leaders on the support available
  – To dare, be bold and take bigger risks and be ‘first movers’
  – Create game-changing new events, to have the guts to own events and not just look at the day-to-day work of replacing rotating events

• Q: Why are business events important to our local economy?
• A’s:
  – Generate economic impact with money reinvested to support city infrastructure
  – Pride in our local institutions such as universities and hospitals
  – Bringing city talent talent together to help the city flourish
  – Events are a great opportunity to market the city and ‘tell the story’
  – Delivering a higher purpose i.e. providing a platform for new cures and discoveries

• Q: What are the obstacles to the growth of business events in our region?
• A’s:
  – International traveller perceptions that Glasgow is a difficult destination to reach
  – Physical transport connectivity: lack of a hub airport and air-rail connections
  – Lack of city-wide wifi between recognised hotspots and whether venues and organisers make the appropriate investment into event technology
  – Prices in the ‘shoulder months’ may be a disincentive to meetings planners

• Q: Who in this region would benefit from more business events taking place here?
• A’s:
  – Raises the profile host, the city and the country, as well as individuals such as the lead academics
  – Local companies and transport infrastructure
  – Delegates and also opportunity to engage wider public through event related acitivities
  – The wider community and the actual business events supply chain who may be unware that they are part of the industry

Session 2 (Edinburgh)

• Q: Why are business events important to our local economy?
  A’s:
  – Business events generate revenue across the year and extend the tourism season
  – Generating sustainable employment base that retain the youth population
  – Helps to create communities for key business sectors
  – Easier to manage and more profitable than the leisure sector
  – Business delegates tend to be more respectful of their environment

• Q: What collaborations would help facilitate the growth of the business events sector in our region?
• A’s:
  – Collaborate with industry-wide bodies both nationally and internationally
  – Enhance relationships with clients to understand their needs
  – Collaboration both horizontally and vertically, in terms of markets, across sectors

• Q: Who in this region would benefit from more business events taking place here?
• A’s:
  – Tourism industry, key sectors, corporates, academics, higher education
  – Business delegates themselves through extending their stay
  – Enhancing the knowledge economy of the city, enabling students to access career opportunities
  – Legacy benefits of hosting a business event will filter through, potentially leading to social, economic, education, environmental and community change
  – Reputational benefit to Scotland of hosting a business event

Session 3 (Aberdeen)

• Q: What changes can be made in our region to encourage the growth of business events?
• A’s:
  -Tackle the myth that Aberdeen is solely about oil and gas- Support efforts to diversify the local economy and create clear city-wide messaging through appropriate leadership channels to that effect
  – Create promtional material which city partners can all utilise for their own individual purposes as part of a ‘one city’ strategy
  -Ensure the whole community understands what the industry is doing and how it can benefit them
  – Promote the industry as a career opportunity for young people and ensure that message is understood by people who have grown up only knowing the oil and gas story
  – Explore ways of financial risk sharing between organisations who stand to benefit from the hosting of business events, and then re-invest in the industry

• Q: What are the obstacles to the
  growth of business events in our
  region?
• A’s:
  – Single economy perception, plus connectivity, capacity and
  price of services
  – Price of oil fluctuates causing unsustainable peaks and troughs in industry activity
  – Oil affects ability to release capacity into business events industry
  – Lack of a transistional strategy which could facilitate business events around industries such as decommissioning, low carbon economy
  – Aberdeen not recognised in the Economist’s special report on energy geopolitics – needs to be pushing that global message

Session 4 (Dundee &Angus)

• Q: Who in this region would benefit from more business events taking place here?
• A’s:
  – Academic ambassadors, local infrastructure, universities and institutions
  – Hospitality industry, local communuties
  – Organisers or entrepreneurs willing to work with partnership networks to develop ‘self-created’ events along the lines of London Tech Week
  – Engaging local businesses/corporates who stand to benefit from business events in their sector, as well as the events who derive sponsorship and branding opportunites
  – Key sectors which could potentially benefit from international events that stimulate inward investment into the area

• Q: What collaborations would help facilitate the growth of the business events sector in our region?
• A’s:
  – Invest in the development of infrastructure that improves access to Dundee
  – Improve the perception and image of Dundee itself whether that’s locally, nationally or internationally and the quality of its business events-related products and services
  – Communications – how we communicate across all the different regions and the communities that are involved
  – Having the confidence to think of Dundee as a destination for business events
  – A clear national and international strategy for the business events sector to understand where we can direct our energies – because resources are limited
  – To have a dedicated new convention centre for Dundee – but also invest in the people and skills needed to resource it
  – Build and grow the successful academic ambassador programme