European Cities Marketing CEO: Dr John Heeley

Dr Heeley took up office in August 2010. His task is to initiate implementation of ECM’s three year strategy 2011-2013 approved by the General Assembly in Las Palmas last June. At the same time, he will seek to ensure ECM consolidates its unique position as a pan-European network within which city tourist offices and convention bureaux can benchmark themselves and exchange best practice and other information.

A priority for Dr Heeley will be to enhance even further the quality of ECM’s annual events programme, especially the day-long seminars which form the centre piece of its spring and autumn meetings and its flagship annual conference.

Dr Heeley is the founder of Best Destination Marketing, the banner under which he now subsumes all his writing, research and consultancy work in the field of city marketing. His first book, entitled ‘Inside City Tourism: a European perspective’, is to be published next February by Channel View Publications. His career in city marketing has spanned academe and industry, and over a nineteen year period 1990-2009 he set up from scratch destination marketing organisations for the cities of Sheffield, Coventry, Birmingham, and Nottingham. His experiences in these four cities are the subject of an article to be published at the end of this month in a special edition of the Journal of Town and City Management devoted to the subject of city marketing. Both the book and the article emphasise the advantages and importance of the ECM network.

How do you feel about this new role as ECM’s Interim CEO?

I am naturally thrilled by this opportunity. My career in city marketing started in 1972, so to be CEO of European Cities Marketing is like the icing on the cake, as we say in the UK. As a member of ECM between 2002-2009, I drew enormous benefit from attending its meetings, taking back ideas and information which helped the cities I then served to remain competitive and up-to-date as urban tourism destinations. One good example was a corporate donation scheme which to this day brings about €300,000 of income annually to Marketing Birmingham. Having drawn so much from ECM, as CEO I now intend to put more than a little back into ECM, helping it to implement its ambitious three year strategy and achieve the targets contained therein.

In what way has this experience (knowing ECM first as a member and then becoming the CEO of the organisation) influenced your perception of European Cities Marketing?

Wow, that’s made me think! Fundamentally, ECM is a membership organisation and it stands or falls by the quality of the opportunities and services it offers to its city-based tourist offices and convention bureaux. When I was a member, I was motivated by the spirit of ECM – the spontaneity, the camaraderie, the trust and the non-confrontational manner in which information and best practice was being routinely exchanged. As a CEO, my thoughts are all about modernising and professionalising the association, delivering growth in the number of members and a strong sense of future direction, while at the same time nurturing and keeping alive that very special spirit to which I have just referred.

In your point of view, what is the strength of the ECM network?

Its unique selling proposition is the pan-European basis on which we benchmark and swop intelligence and ideas. Prior to joining ECM in 2002, I had blindly assumed that we in Britain were well ahead in the theory and practice of city marketing – how wrong was that! My eyes were opened by what tourist offices and convention bureaux were doing in cities such as Stockholm, Dublin, Vienna, Berlin, Nice, Gothenburg, Barcelona and Copenhagen – to name but a few. Through ECM it also dawned on me how the differences between cities in the way they market themselves are greatly outweighed by the shared ways of doing, seeing and speaking city tourism – as I say in my forthcoming book, a bednight in Dubrovnik is a bednight in St Petersburgh, Prague and Oslo

What is your number one priority?

Enhancing the quality of the three meetings which ECM stages for its members every year, especially the seminar component. They are good already, and I want them to be even better as measured by the online feedback we get from members. Having attended the seminars, members should go away feeling inspired and fully armed with lots of practical tips and takeaways!

And the biggest challenge?

ECM’s lifeblood is its membership and the fees paid to become a member represent discretionary spend for tourist offices and convention bureaux. The next three years are going to be difficult ones financially for our members, confronted as they are by continuing economic uncertainties, ever intensifying competition from third party booking agencies, and cuts in grant income from central and local government. The big challenge is therefore enshrined in the very title of ECM’s 3 year strategy – strength in quality and in numbers. Achieving this will be no mean task, but I can ensure you the team at ECM head office are “up for it”!