Gothenburg Focuses on Events and Meetings in the City
This year’s European Cities Marketing Annual Conference & General Assembly will be held in Gothenburg from 15th to 20th June 2009.
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Gothenburg, the international seaport and trading city of Scandinavia, will welcome ECM members at the best possible time of year – the Swedish Midsummer Week – with old cultural traditions, dining and dancing, and hopefully a sun that never sets over all the islands in the western archipelago.
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“EVENTS AND MEETINGS IN THE CITY” is the theme of this year’s Annual Conference. The goal of the conference is to answer the question “What will it take to be truly successful as an international meetings and events destination in the future?” Camilla Nyman, Göteborg & Co, provides some extra information about the new concept of the ECM seminar and the very promising ECM meeting in Gothenburg.
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The seminar in Gothenburg will differ from the previous ones. In what way have you revitalised the event?
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What we really strive for is to find a way to use the competence of all the participating delegates. Our dream is if the forum used as a think tank – 200 brains with destination development as their core competence, everyone focusing on what it really will take to be a truly successful destination in the future. We believe that by taking the interactivity within ECM to, if possible, a higher level by using interactive sessions, all of us will hopefully try to generate knowledge that will have impact on our common future.
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What is the major focus? Is the topic oriented more to Tourism or to Conventions?
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It will be a special focus on both meetings and events. From a destination’s point of view, the two are becoming increasingly important, meetings carrying on even though times are tough and events are more and more becoming a tool box that destinations use in order to attract visitors and build a brand and to improve knowledge around our industry.
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From the point of view of the seminar topic “Events and Meetings in the City”, what kind of event is Midsummer for Gothenburg?
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This is a difficult question, for all of us up here in the northern part of Europe, this time of the year is really magic. Being a professional, as all of us are, one of the ideas with coming together, is to share the real traditional values of the destinations, and this is as good as it can be! We all felt the spirit in Dublin with the dancers and experiencing the soul of the destination is always interesting for all of us. Midsummer is one of the most beloved Swedish traditions, being an old pagan celebration, dating back to the Viking Era. Midsummers Eve is lively and colourful feast with music, dancing and entertainment with traditional Swedish cuisine, such as herring and potatoes, strawberries, beer and aquavit. On this magical night, the days are the longest and the nights are shortest.
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During the ECM Meeting, on Wednesday 17th June, a Research Symposium has been organised to enrich the Gothenburg programme. Mia Larson (Director of The Centre For Tourism at the School of Business, Economics and Law of Gothenburg University) explains the goal of the symposium:
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“Tourism research is about understanding the industry better. This knowledge can be used to develop a successful and sustainable industry- something we all want to attain. Thus, it is important that research is communicated at conferences such as ECM’s for professionals to reflect on and learn from. At the same time academic researchers need to learn how professionals think and act in order to produce meaningful and reliable research. The ECM conference will be an arena where professionals and academic researchers can meet and communicate which hopefully will promote a dialogue between the two.
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The professionals can gain a lot by attending the Research Symposium. They will have the opportunity to listen to presentations on the latest research within events research. Moreover, they can converse with and form relationships with top academic researchers in the field of tourism and events.”
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View the video invitation to Gothenburg
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Download the programme of ECM Annual Conference & General Assembly here
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