Editorial

After a pilot phase with a restricted number of participating cities, this group managed in 2011, for the first time, to attempt collecting data from every member wishing to join this project. In fact, it was possible to get meeting statistics from 39 member cities, for 2009 and 2010, which resulted in what we believe is just the first publication of an “ECM Meetings Statistics Report”, that this group intends to produce on a yearly basis. It should be noticed that for this outcome external resources were needed, and, for that, we should express our gratitude to ECM’s Board and Head Office, for providing us with the means and support, and to Olivier Drouet – the person who was contracted to produce this first report – for his extreme professionalism and dedication in analysing and producing the results.

At this stage, the reader may ask whether this kind of project is necessary, given the fact that other well-established international organisations are already producing studies in this field. Well, our answer to that must be positive. Every city tourism manager knows the importance of the meetings industry in the visitor flows and expenditure in their destinations. This share of the market covers not only international associative meetings, but also national associative meetings and international and national corporate meetings. For the latter three, the existing compilations of data are, at least, very scarce. Our intention here is precisely to try to fill this gap, by collecting and organising, on a permanent basis, this kind of information, in order to evaluate the volume of this side of the demand in European cities, and to allow benchmarking.

A second question may arise in the reader: Is this possible to do? Well, the only way to find an answer is by trying to do it, and, in the past two years, everybody we have talked with has encouraged ECM’s Research & Statistics Knowledge Group to take the project forward.

We are perfectly conscious, within this group, that, in order to be successful, some issues must be faced, like the methodological approach, the absence of data, and having significant city coverage.

It is known that each city collecting data on meetings uses, most of the time, its own criteria. So, when compiling the several sets of data, adaptations are required to respect a methodology that may be applicable to all. For that, this group resisted the temptation of reinventing the wheel, and is using a methodology drawn up by UNWTO and, so far, adaptations of the existing data have been made successfully.

We must also consider that in many cities the required data is not complete and, sometimes, it doesn’t even exist. In this field, ECM’s Research & Statistics Knowledge Group has put effort into communicating several ways some member cities use when performing this kind of task, which may be found on ECM’s intranet. In terms of methodology, communicating the criteria used in the report, when asking ECM members for their information, is also a way of surmounting this obstacle. This is an issue that we expect to overcome with time, depending on the interest we raise among members in this project. For that, we’re relying on the undeniable importance that the meetings industry has for every city in Europe and in the power of ECM as a networking organisation.

In addition to an article about “ECM Meetings Statistics 2011 Report”, this newsletter covers other important issues:

– Several European city tourism experts expect tourism flows to grow during the summer of 2011 and are very positive about prospects for the whole year, as can be seen in a short summary about the European City Tourism Monitor X Report.

– City Tourism Organisations’ website traffic has gained significant interest in the tourism community lately. For this number, an article about the latest trends in online website statistics has been prepared.

– Social responsibility from tourism actors is certainly on people’s agendas today. Another article included in this newsletter gives us guidance on how we can all be sustainable in order to protect the future of our industry.

André Barata Moura
Head of Research and Statistics
Turismo de Lisboa – Visitors and Convention Bureau
Member of ECM Research & Statistics Knowledge Group