17 European Countries Band Together to Create Meetings-Themed Marketing Organization
Photo Credit: The "Think Hungary - More Than Expected" tourism marketing campaign was a surprising winner at this year's Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards. Hungary Convention Bureau
Skift Take
By pooling resources, the national DMOs can build on each others' strengths and expand Europe's exposure for corporate travelers and meeting attendees beyond the traditional first-tier countries.
This fall, 17 European convention bureaus across the continent announced the formation of a new alliance, designed to pool resources and share best practices to protect market share in the global meetings and convention arena.
This initiative—presently positioned as the European National Convention Bureaux—parallels the leisure consumer-facing Visit Europe consortia of 33 tourism bureaus, operated by the European Travel Commission. The launch date for an official website has not yet been announced.
U.S. bookings for meetings, conventions and incentive travel are coming back strong throughout Europe, as they are in many other long-haul destinations that were also deemed prohibitively expensive during the recession.
“We’re increasing our group sales staff 20% in Europe for 2015,” says Christopher Koleros, area director of sales/marketing, Europe, InterContinental Hotels. “There’s a lot of pent up demand for Europe right now, including secondary markets like Prag
