"Go Beyond Organizing Events: Create Communities"

1 — As an international company with clients around the world, in what geographical area do you see more growth and dynamism in the events industry? Is there a geographical area with less or negative growth?

Overall, 2016 is going to be a strong year for the meetings industry. We are experiencing growth in meeting spend and clients overall are recognizing the importance of investing in events. We predict that the industry will continue to realize long-term global growth rate of about 10% per annum, which is faster than most industries. As businesses and organizations become more global in scope, meetings, events and conventions are fundamental elements of the overall marketing mix to boost organizational growth and build engagement with key customer and stakeholder groups.
In today’s connected world, building engagement for your key customers, members and stakeholder groups is a vital strategic asset.  Face to Face interaction, which represents 84% continues to be the preferred source of communication despite the spread of online communication. Companies and organizations recognizing that events, meetings & congresses are the platforms that best accelerate and deepen relationships among other marketing disciplines.
More specifically, in Europe and the USA, we continued to see the rise of “Strategic Meetings Management” for global organizations but managed in a culturally aligned local context. In both these markets, we do see some uncertainty in the short term due to Brexit and the recent presidential election. LATAM has had its share of complexity but the slow-down of the Brazil market expansion has not had a material impact, and we continue to see above market YOY expansion of our M&E activities in Brazil. Lastly, we have noticed a general slowdown in the Middle East and Africa region due to the uncertainty around economic and political situations. Asia Pacific growth rate has certainly stabilized but continues to perform in line with our expectations and we see an increasing market for outbound meetings and incentives from the APAC market and China in particular.

2 — What does the customer value when choosing a destination?

There are many reasons, but the main one would be to find the right strategic fit about their specific project or business objective that needs to be met to drive ROI. It also can be very different from industry to industry. We advise our clients to begin with an assessment of their objectives and how best to meet these within the context of budgets, milestones, predictability, and feasibility. Of course, we also need to look at the traditional factors like accessibility, facilities, local infrastructure, health and safety and the total overall cost of participation measured against the expected financial outcome of the event.

3 — And what does MCI value when it comes to choosing a venue for its clients?

The primary value driver for MCI is to provide clients with the right location, at the right price and the right contractual conditions in order to help the client achieve their business objectives. We leverage global sourcing hubs for our venue sourcing in order to standardize the sourcing of venues through the implementation of group wide best practice control. At MCI, we are able to generate value for our clients through venue comparison and negotiations, but more importantly through volume consolidation, which leads to significant savings and efficiencies. We also deliver these efficiencies for our clients through facilitated contracting processes with suppliers. MCI helps clients understand their overall spend and guides them in the making of ongoing improvements.

4 — How have the demands of clients varied over the years?

Clients are seeing the importance of working with a specialist who is able to help them navigate the changing demands of business. Whether it is to consolidate purchasing, to standardize processes, to increase efficiency of contracting and provide detailed and analytical reporting or increase engagement and provide their customers and stakeholders with an unforgettable experience, at MCI we bring together all the elements to help our clients navigate constantly changing demands.

5 — What industrial sector do you think will increase its budget as relates to the organization of events in the coming years?

It is hard to predict any specific sector, as we are seeing most sectors are needing to adapt and to better engage their key communities. Any industry that will be able to activate hybrid events that merge virtual and face-to-face meetings will increase meeting spend as it offers a cost effective way to increase engagement. Events in the future will be focused around building communities that are sustainable 24/7 and 365 days a year. This means providing the bridge from online to offline and back to online in order to keep community members engaged throughout the year. As we like to say, “it’s not about who attends, it’s about who engages”. Our strap line since 2003 has been “Building Community” and we believe we are leading the industry with a clear vision on how to help businesses and organizations build active communities for the future.

6 — This year MCI has organized the event to kick off the Tour de France. Are sporting events one of MCI’s biggest bets?

Our sports business unit is a relative new and grouping sector at MCI. We are seeing growth across various types of sporting events and the reason sports are more popular than ever before, is due to the fact that it enables companies and organizations to and engage and unite audiences, communities and nations. Traditional sporting events and new contenders such as e-sports will definitely be a part of MCI’s competency for the future. We are building partnerships with companies and originations in these fields and are actively involved in opening new geographic markets for e-sports.
E-sports have redefined the way players and fans converge, and have already built immense on-line communities around their common interest and serve as a template on how online and offline activities will merge in the future. E-sports used to be entirely online but now fill stadiums and traditional sports are taking the emotion of the live event and engaging through social media and new technologies to serve millennials.

7 — What trends are you seeing in the organization of M&E over the next few years?

The key trend is that an event does not exist on its own anymore and incorporating digital components into the event program are very important to be considered in the overall event strategy. These elements are driving the constant need for innovation. In some industries, such as healthcare, meetings & events are increasingly impacted by regulations and compliance that will force the meetings and event industry to adapt and innovate new concepts and business models in order to facilitate the required interactions between industry and healthcare practitioners. A solid example of this type of evolution is the Global Engagement Index (GEI) that MCI and our partners at Fair control launched exclusively for the association market. The GEI measures the performance, relationship strength and outcome of engagement tactics as seen through the eyes of associations’ customers and members.

8 — After the Economic crisis, do you think that companies will organize incentives again or is there a new type of event that has emerged as a result of this situation?

Incentive travel is still being viewed as the best reward to recognize internal audiences for extraordinary performances! This has never stopped!  There is a trend we are seeing in that companies are trying to maximize their travel and meeting spend, so we see a coming wave of meetings within meetings in order to maximize both cost and time efficiency. However, fundamentally Face to Face meetings continue to be one of the strongest drivers of business or marketing success. We predict that the industry will continue to grow at above average rates for the foreseeable future. Lastly, we certainly see an increase in incentives from the USA and China markets presently. This also shows that companies are willing to experiment and go out of the traditional incentive destinations.