Association Meetings: Luring Americans Overseas

More and more association meeting planners and tradeshow organizers are seeking out international destinations where they can take members who are looking for memorable experiences. That means there is fierce competition among countries vying for lucrative U.S.-based events.

Marianne Van Wagner, executive coordinator of the San Antonio-based Intl. Behavioral Neuroscience Society, said she takes her organization's annual meeting, and its average 250 attendees, overseas every third year.

Last year, the group went to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. In past years it's gone to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Capri, off the Italian coast. This year, the IBNS meeting will be held in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (technically a U.S. destination).

Planners have many exotic places to choose from, so it takes some work to catch their eye. Several countries are making efforts to attract American meetings and shows. Convention Scotland, the business tourism unit of VisitScotland, provides one example of the lengths some countries' tourism agencies will go to – and why it's worth the trouble.

Because of IBNS' 750 members representing 33 countries, Van Wagner sometimes feels like the world is at her fingertips when it comes to deciding where to book the annual meeting.

“One of our members is from Scotland. ... He said, 'Scotland would be a great place to have a meeting,' and I said I would look into it,” Van Wagner said. “A week later VisitScotland called and asked me to come over.”

She said she is considering Scotland for her 2010 meeting.

Kim Dixon, deputy executive director of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Natl. Strength and Conditioning Assn., organizes a dozen meetings a year and has just started shopping future international locations.

In April, the NSCA will hold its first event outside of the United States, in Amsterdam.

But that's just the beginning, as far as she is concerned.

“We're going to take more of them out of the country, so we're looking for a future site,” Dixon added.

Van Wagner, Dixon and the five other American meeting planners who recently participated in a Scotland fam' trip were hand-picked by Marketing Challenges Intl., an agency based in New York City, at the behest of Convention Scotland. The main criteria was that those chosen had shown an interest in taking an event to Scotland, according to Daniella Crawley, MCI's business development director.

Scotland's three major cities – Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen – already attract association meetings from the U.K. and Europe, so North American groups seemed like the next to cultivate. Working with a U.S.-based marketing agency is just one way Convention Scotland is expanding its horizons.

Catriona Anderson, Convention Scotland's associations manager, said her job is “to raise awareness in Scotland in our key markets (of) the U.K., North America and Europe.”

Along with hosting the occasional fam' trip, Convention Scotland attends annual meetings of groups such as the Professional Convention Management Assn. and American Society of Assn. Executives & The Center.

“As we get more and more access and awareness, we are starting to feel the benefit of those relationships now (with PCMA and ASAE),” Anderson said.

According to her, most associations that would be interested in Scotland match up well with the country's most important industries: life sciences, technology, energy, finance and health care.

Aberdeen, the country's third-largest city, located on the North Sea, for example, has a booming offshore oil, gas and renewable energy business. The city's convention center, the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre, was built in 1985 to host Off Shore Europe, a biennial event for the oil and gas industry that attracts 39,000 attendees to 20,000 square meter (215,278 square foot) of exhibits inside and outside, according to Ian McLaren, the AECC's association sales executive.

“It's a huge, huge event,” he said. “It's the largest oil and gas event outside of the U.S.”

A meeting of the Intl. Assn. of Energy Economics and the Carbon 2006 Conference also took place in the Aberdeen center, along with countless health care meetings.

“We do a lot of marketing in the States,” said Fiona MacLaurin, AECC's association sales manager. “We attend a lot of shows such as PCMA and MPI (Meeting Professionals Intl.), and we did two fam' trips last year.”

Edinburgh, the country's capital, not only has a strong government and finance base, but also four universities.

“We probably do things differently than other (destinations) because there's not a lot of advertising,” said Hillary Bett, the Edinburgh Convention Bureau's conference and incentive business development manager. “We have 1,200 (volunteer) ambassadors, and we use them to help attract conferences in their fields. Instead of placing an ad, we would go to the Intl. Congress & Convention Assn. database and target which conferences we would like to have in Edinburgh and then ask ambassadors how they would like to help us.”

Seventy percent of Edinburgh's business tourism is association-driven, she added. Between 30 and 50 meetings held there each year are owned or operated by associations.

“(International) meetings have the biggest economic impact because they tend to be longer,” she added, “four days instead of two for a corporate, and people come with their families.”

Most of the larger meetings in Edinburgh, like the Annual Intl. Assn. of Mental Forensic Health Conference, are held at the Edinburgh Intl. Conference Center, which has a 1,185 sq. m. (12,755 sq. ft.) exhibit hall and 11 meeting rooms.

Tracy Moropito, conference coordinator for the Vancouver, British Columbia-based IAMFH, said the June 24-26 meeting would be her group's first at a convention center venue

“I've heard really good things about the EICC, so that's great,” she added.

Since she organized the meeting single-handedly, Moropito said, she was particularly pleased with the help she would be getting from individuals in her association's field who work in Edinburgh for Scotland's National Health Service. “They are part of the forensic network,” she added.

Bigger meetings with more attendees that need substantial tradeshow space typically head to Glasgow, the country's largest city, on the Clyde River.

“We have the largest convention center in the U.K., where everything is all under one roof,” said Paul Cuthbert, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau's U.K. association sales manager. He was referring to the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Center, which offers 22,355 sq. m. (240,627 sq. ft.) of exhibit space six miles from the city's airport. It has three anchor hotels with close to 600 rooms, and another 17,000 total rooms are spread throughout the city.

“The (association) business has always been there, but Glasgow has really increased the effort to get the association business,” Cuthbert said, “Before, people didn't appreciate it. We are focusing more on the international market. We used to be a bit more timid, but now we are competing for major events.”

Two of the larger events that the SECC will host in 2008 are the World Pain Congress, drawing some 5,000 attendees, and Congress of the Intl. Astronautical Federation, drawing 2,000 attendees.

With 2,000 local ambassadors as liaisons, “65 to 70 percent of what we do is association business,” Cuthbert said. “It's really big.”