Sales managers from the Budapest Convention Bureau responsible for the association market participated in the ICCA (International Congress and Convention Association) Global Business Exchange workshop on 7 December 2020.

Held digitally for the first time this year, the event is one of the cornerstones of ICCA, its main objective is to encourage interaction and experience exchange among ICCA members.

It is unusual in the association market for a congress or conference that rotates worldwide not to take place in the same destination within 10-15 years, so any information required to win the right to organise may be out of date by the time of the next application. Recognizing this, the international association has set up the Business Exchange workshop where members can exchange experiences on events recently tendered for, two or three times a year. The workshop participants are happy to share any knowledge gained during the application process, thereby helping the work of other convention bureaus and PCOs when applying for this specific event in the future. After all, during this period, the members are not competitors, but rather colleagues, partners – the workshop leader, Marco van Itterzon, Director of ICCA Research Department pointed out.

These workshops give each participant the opportunity to present information about a large international event. He/she must also have participated in the application for, and organisation of this event during the last two years. The presented events do not necessarily have to be a successful application, but the selection process should have been completed in each case. Another important criterion at the Business Exchange workshop is that the event must be rotated globally and internationally.

This year, a total of 46 ICCA members from all around the world registered for the two-hour event, with case studies from their own destination that met the above criteria.

At this year’s digital event, BUD CB colleagues acquired detailed information on application and decision-making processes, the need for possible state subsidies, the events’ budgets and the themes of specific accompanying events.

They can use this experiential knowledge to aid the associations’ work when tendering for these congresses, thus increasing the number of international congresses and conferences held in Budapest and Hungary.