‘IT’S VERY MUCH ABOUT ESTABLISHING A RELATIONSHIP AND STAYING IN CONTACT WITH BUYERS, QUALIFYING THEM FURTHER AND TRYING TO KEEP SCOTLAND FRONT OF MIND’
Amanda Ferguson (right), Meetings & Incentives Marketing Manager - UK & Europe, VisitScotland
Natascha Langhein, Account Manager at Lieb Management in Munich
of e-newsletters, and social media activity - she will be sending out a lot of messages on that front as well.” And it certainly appears to be
paying off: the agency started by delivering around £2m of inqui- ries and that increased to £13m last year. Of course there are other European markets and it would be churlish to forget the French, whose Auld Alliance with Scotland still helps to generate a lot of business, with Air France recently launching a new direct flight into Glasgow from Paris. Tere will be a strong French
presence at London’s Olympia, and across the board Ferguson hopes to improve on last year’s performance, when the team had 200 visits to the stand with 53 appointments booked over the three days; VS staff also secured 24 inquiries (a key performance indicator representing the potential business value), which if converted to sales would have
equated to around £6.5m for the Scottish economy. It cannot be quantified further
than that, Ferguson adds, as they don’t always receive feedback from suppliers, many of whom benefit from the all-important European ‘hosted buyer scheme’, which Te Meetings Show organises as a way of putting the serious buyers in direct contact with organisations like VisitScotland. Te scheme - under which organ-
isers pay for the travel and accom- modation of the buyers - has grown in stature and allows the likes of VisitScotland to pre-qualify the kind of organisations they would most like to pitch to at the show, who in return must commit to a certain number of appointments each day. It is highly regimented, and inarguably helps put serious players together, but it is not the be all and end all, as Ferguson points out. “What we’re finding is you can’t just judge the success on KPIs
[key performance indicators], like footfall or inquiries; they are a great way of meeting up with your clients and presenting what you have to offer but it’s increasingly about networking and just re-forging those friendships.”
ANOTHER DEVELOPMENT for Vis- itScotland this year will be a ‘learn- ing point’ it has gained from other large trade shows, like the IMEX event which took place in Frankfurt in March. At that event, VisitScot- land was able to invite three or four groups to its stand for a ‘destination presentation’. Although that might not work for the UK market – as there is already an appreciation of what Scotland can offer so ‘up- date presentations’ will be offered instead – it is something Ferguson is keen to do at Te Meetings Show, despite there being no official facil- ity for it. “Tis year we’re going to run that for ourselves and promote it
through our own databases, or ask our clients to come onto the stand and if they want an introduction we’ll do presentations at set times - we’re very much going to do that off our own bat. At the end of the day it’s very much about establishing a relationship and staying in contact with buyers, qualifying them further and trying to keep Scotland front of mind.”
n PARTNERS ON THE VISITSCOTLAND STAND AT OLYMPIA:
AECC Edinburgh First EICC Fairmont St Andrews Fife Tourism Business Group Convention Edinburgh National Museums Scotland SECC The Kingsmills Hotel Trump Turnberry VisitAberdeenshire
EVENTSBASE | SUMMER 2016 | 25
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