BUSINESS EVENTS LEADERS SUMMIT SPECIAL REPORT


Neil Brownlee, Head of Business Events at VisitScotland (far left), and


“THE ICEBERG IS THE WAY TO THE FUTURE. WE NEED TO ARTICULATE THAT ARGUMENT IN SCOTLAND, TO SCOTTISH


GOVERNMENT AND OTHERS” Neil Brownlee, Head of Business Events, VisitScotland


Paul McAfferty (left), Head of Tourism at Scottish Enterprise, talked about the wider contribution business events can make to national economic priorities at #BELS18


Scottish Government agencies commit to pushing business events higher up the agenda


Inaugural Business Events Leaders’ Summit hears need for ‘higher order strategy’ to integrate business events within wider policy goals


BY KEVIN O’SULLIVAN S


cotland requires a ‘higher order strategy’ which places business events at the heart of economic and social policy-making across


all departments of government, the inaugural Business Events Leaders’ Summit has heard. If Scotland is to continue to


compete on the world stage, it must articulate a vision whereby business events are seen by industry and government as a powerful tool to stimulate inward investment, attract global talent and to support the work of key economic sectors.


“We are change agents, not travel


agents,” was a message which permeated through the gathering of high-level business events pro- fessionals at #BELS18 at Glasgow’s SEC on March 21. But the MICE (Meetings, Incen-


tives, Conferences & Exhibitions) industry, worth a putative £2bn to the Scottish econony, has charac- teristically evolved as a tourism concern, the event heard, and that any benefits derived from it, especially those over the longer term (such as the legacy of a new scientific discovery or a new business deal made), are not effec- tively measured by government, its


agencies or even the industry itself. In order to push the agenda for


the MICE industry in Scotland and farther afield, its leaders must articulate the vision to politicians that investing in the sector is vital not only to attracting international conferences to populate hotels and venues, but also to the wider realms of society, in terms of their long-term or ‘beyond tourism’ benefits, evoked by projects such as the Iceberg, conceived by the Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC). In Australia, for example, Business


Events Sydney worked with local academics to develop a model which proved the worth of meetings as a


tool for economic and social change; politicians then used that research – carried out by the University of Technology Sydney (#BELS18 speak- ers Professors Carmel Foley and Deborah Edwards) – as an evidence base before investing in the new ICC Sydney convention centre. Neil Brownlee, Head of Busi-


ness Events at VisitScotland, told delegates: “I think we truly need to be driving Scotland’s economic and social transformation through busi- ness events. I think that’s funda- mentally where we need to get to in Scotland. How can we do this? Te higher level ambition – we need a higher order strategy. “Te Iceberg is the way to the


future. We need to articulate that argument in Scotland, to Scottish Government and others. “We need to convince and convert


people to what business events is about. We need to keep the tourism bit because that’s an important part of the offering. “I think we’re making progress


rather than perfection but I think… we need a higher order strategy, and that’s where Scotland needs to get to.” Te meeting was the first time


this quantity and calibre of indus- try leaders had gathered formally in Scotland for a summit to discuss high-level strategy. More than 120 delegates from organisations including Trump Turnberry, Te Balmoral, University of St Andrews, Fairmont St Andrews attended alongside national and regional government bodies including VisitScotland and regional conven- tional bureaux as well as the big publicly-backed meetings centres such as the SEC in Glasgow, Edin- burgh’s EICC and the new AECC in Aberdeen.


ALL TOOK part in afternoon work- shops based on developing those principal MICE centres, with out- comes collected and disseminated by EventsBase magazine, which are available online. Nationally, the strategy to develop


‘Business Tourism’ sits within the over-arching Tourism 2020 strategy, which is due a refresh next year, a process to be completed by the industry group Business Tourism for Scotland (BTfS), Chaired by Judy Rae, who has worked hard to push business events further


up the industry agenda with key stakeholders, including the Scot- tish Tourism Alliance and Scottish Government. Paul McCafferty, Head of Tourism


at Scottish Enterprise, paid tribute to that work and said: “Prior to the launch of Tourism Scotland 2020, our support from Scottish Enter- prise was very much about business infrastructure investment often driven by wider regeneration in place development priorities. “It was a significant investment in


cash terms and in terms of creat- ing capacity for Scotland to operate internationally in the business events field but very much about bricks and mortar. Following the


“WE NEED TO BE DRIVING SCOTLAND’S ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION THROUGH BUSINESS EVENTS”


launch of the strategy, we moved away from the simple bricks and mortar approach which was evident in the likes of our investment in the EICC or the early days of the SEC or more recently the Hydro Arena and considered much more about the wider economic contribution that business events could make for Scotland also how the contribution could be made to the sector devel- opment agenda.” McCafferty admitted that it


has been “challenging”, however, to articulate the benefits of the long-term impacts of conferences because of the nature of them being so far from the point of immediate, measurable economic benefits. But event though it’s difficult he urged the audience to make a ‘clear ask’ of government as to what it wants, and then base that on evidence. “What would it mean in terms of


additional economic value and thus the justification for the allocation of the resource,?” he said. “In the case of business events, as we’ve heard, that is a very, very difficult thing to do, but my feeling is somehow we have to find a way of cracking this.” l


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