First Quarter 2010

2010: A year for moderate optimism

According to a recent study by Ultramar Event Management, the Meetings Industry on our continent envisages better performance with the coming of the new year, as compared to the results from now-finished 2009.

In terms of countries, top European markets such as Great Britain, France or Germany will start stirring, according to these previsions, somewhere between moderately positive trends and a fiscal year with clear improvements in respect to last year. Undoubtedly, such affirmations appear to be made to perfectly fit into the economic recovery registered in these countries and others in Northern Europe in the last quarter of 2009. The same previsions put special emphasis square on Great Britain, where everything points to evident signs of recovery, especially to anything related to incentive trips, as clients have increased their proposal requests for 2010; nevertheless, they also warn that other agents and organisations are leaning toward the thought that this will be a year with performance levels similar to those of 2009, where the general trend of arranging events nearby or even within the same territory will be holding fast.

As for Spain, this Ultramar study also indicates that it will remain the preferred destination among operators, but a good number of professional organizers advise that there is a strong need for the destination to reinvent itself and apply new, more appealing formulas and explore the so-called green events more profoundly.

In this sense, from these pages we want to stick our necks out for this country, its professionals and institutions, as we are well aware that work has been long under way, even before the shadow of the crisis reared its ugly head, in favour of making a more satisfactory, appealing and stronger offer to the Meetings Industry. And we serve as example the ongoing creation of specific organisational bodies whose objective is to facilitate the arrangement and marketing of M.I packages. Some examples can be found at the regional level in the recently created Catalonia Convention Bureau, or in smaller cities such as the Lloret Convention Bureau on Catalonia's Costa Brava, or the impulse given from the Alicante Regional Government to the Costa Blanca Convention Bureau. These are not just mere initials or simple offices, but behind them are able-bodied groups of professionals who make coordination happen and ensure that understandings and agreements are reached between the private sector, professionals and administrations. If not, could you believe that such meetings in Spain would be organized as that which will take place in Malaga in a few weeks? We refer to the European Meetings & Events Conference of MPI, a professional association with more than 22,000 associates around the world, where for 4 days more than 700 delegates will be gathering to attend high-level courses, talks, and using firsthand the facilities offered by the city of Malaga which have made it a reference in the Congress, Convention, Events and Incentive Trip sector. Believe us that to achieve this, the Costa del Sol Convention Bureau has intervened, along with the institutional support from Turespaña, Turismo Andaluz and the Malaga City Government through its Tourism Department and the Malaga Convention Bureau. All these organisational body squarely focussed on M.I. tasks, make no doubt about it.

José Alarcón