Jeu Bressers, Chair of the European Chapter of the IACC

14/03/2011

“The venues and the meeting culture in Europe are very different from those in the USA”

Following his appointment as chair of the new European chapter of the International Association of Conference Centers (IACC), BWMN quizzed Jeu Bressers on its creation, its aims, and the state of the conference industry in general…

BWMN: How did the creation of the European Chapter of the IACC come about? What does it aim to achieve?

Jeu Bressers: Around a third of the members of the existing IACC organisation, which is based in the USA, were European and more and more conference centres from Europe were joining, so we decided that it was time that they were represented by their own chapter. With an administrative body situated in Europe, close to all these members, the IACC will be much better equipped to serve their interests.

Furthermore, the venues and the meeting culture in Europe are very different from those in the USA, which makes it difficult to take the same approach with conference centres on both continents. For example, conference centres in Europe are far more authentic and unique, whereas those in the USA tend to be fairly similar and standardised. European events also place a greater emphasis on communication and providing an enjoyable experience for the participants, which means that venues are set up differently from those in America. The creation of the European Chapter has eliminated this problem.

It will also provide us with much greater potential for growing membership in Europe, as it allows us to market and establish the IACC brand there much more effectively; we are aiming to reach 200 European members by 2015, and the creation of the new chapter will make this target much easier to achieve.

BWMN: Who are the members of this new chapter, and where are they based?

Jeu Bressers: At the moment it is made up of around 100 existing members of the IACC based all over Europe. While Denmark is the best represented with around 30 conference centres, we also have members located in Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain. Many are conference hotels, the majority of which are independent are very different from each other, although some of our members also belong to hotel chains: for example, 5 Dolce hotels situated in France, Germany and Spain belong to our organisation. We also represent day meeting centres, and even some university conference centres in the UK, including Warwick University. All of our members are specialised in hosting MICE events, and all of them meet our required standards of service.

BWMN: How was the conference industry affected by the global economic downturn? What steps have been taken to address it?

Jeu Bressers: The level of global travel greatly decreased, and everyone involved was affected, including the conference industry. Some places were more badly hit than others: for example, northern Spain and Barcelona suffered a great deal, partly because of the weak Spanish economy, whereas Scandinavia, and Sweden in particular, were not too adversely affected, and are now picking up very strongly.

While many incentive events were cancelled, fortunately for us not too many meetings were called off. In addition, our members were to a degree protected by the IACC brand, and coped better than other conference centres. We were also fortunate to have the time to prepare for the downturn in Europe, as the USA and UK were the first to be affected, and we were able to predict its effects. We were able to come up with new, innovative business models, including the use of social media to promote our venues. The future remains insecure, but the industry is now recovering.

For more information: www.iacconline.org