Building Bridges

Global venue association AIPC CEO Sven Bossu draws some conclusions from attending the EU dialogue in Brussels Explaining the importance of the event industry to policy is a bit like running a never-ending marathon. At the same time, it is critical to continue to do so. The EU Dialogue which took place in Brussels on 17 April was a great example of the value these dialogues can bring. The event, ‘EU Dialogue: Driving Positive Change in the Meetings Industry’ formed an official part of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union. It brought together event industry leaders and European policy makers to discuss the positive impact the event industry has. Economy and operating conditions, sustainability, digitalisation, data, travel and mobility, innovation and entrepreneurship were all touched upon in sessions throughout the day.  For me there were three key takeaways. First of all, the challenges our industry is facing are no different than those of the global economy. According to a McKinsey report published earlier this year, CEOs across the world struggle with AI/technology, sustainability, talent attention/retention, geopolitics and the fact that the economy is very different than five years ago – exactly the topics touched upon throughout the day and several speakers referred to examples outside the event industry as a point of reference. This cross-fertilisation provides great inspiration and is something to do more, also in our own events. Secondly, good cocktails result in something nicer than the separate ingredients, and that was definitely the case at this event. Both the plenary sessions and breakouts had a mix of European policy makers, event industry leaders and clients having open discussions about challenges faced and – even more importantly – trying to find solutions. For example: one topic which came back regularly is how to make sure that the output of discussions like these, held in the ‘Brussels Bubble’ make it to the persons and organisations outside that bubble and it was great to see that policy makers and the EU administration actually are taking action – also financially – to remediate this. Thirdly, there is still the need to explain to policy makers that, while events bring direct economic benefits such as hotel nights, venue rental, etc., the real value of events does not sit there. Or put differently: the EU Commission is composed of 33 Directorate Generals (DG). Each is under the responsibility of a commissioner and deals with a specific policy area. While the event industry officially falls under the DG Tourism and Transport, business events actually have an impact on all the other DGs, such as health care, industry, and so on. This is where the real value of events sits: by bringing together communities, events have the power to influence policies in many different ways, whether it is about debating content, disseminating information or coming up with alternative solutions. `If the EU policymakers want to get citizens on board, they need to embrace the power of business events and stop seeing them as a different form of tourism. To quote one of the speakers: “We’re change agents, not travel agents”. Finally, the meeting also demonstrated one of the core assets of the event industry: the willingness to exchange information and best practices in order to elevate the industry to the next level. It never ceases to amaze me how generous our industry leaders are when it comes to ‘giving back’. Dialogues are about building bridges between individuals and organisations, resulting into a better understanding of each other and in some case in a joint future. This was a great start of the