“One cannot manage change, we can only be ahead of it!”

This wise and thought-provoking sentence was part of a virtuoso performance by Eddie Friel OBE, a Visiting Professor at Niagara University and President and CEO of EFA Tourism and Marketing Consultancy who was keynote speaker for ECM Spring Meeting held in Sofia from 16th to 18th March. This three-day event attracted about 100 ECM members and the venue was the Bulgarian capital‘s award-winning National Palace of Culture.

Drawing on his vast experience, Friel pinpointed employment generation as the rationale for city tourist offices and convention bureaux, warning that those who failed to create new visitors “had no right to exist”. City tourism organisations were the “champions” of cities, marketing “competitive difference” and – around those differences – charged with developing powerful “narratives” with which to attract conventions and leisure tourism business. 

Chaired by Philippe Vignon, Managing Director of Geneva Tourism and Convention, the theme of the seminar was “Financing Europe’s city tourist offices and convention bureaux – threats, opportunities and solutions”. He showed how he was leading a radical change agenda within his own organisation, aiming to enhance productivity and inculcate greater commercial awareness.

A survey of ECM members highlighted a pervasive trend away from public sector sources of funding and towards commercial income streams. This survey revealed that the “typical” city tourist organisation has less than 50 staff, survives on modest reserves, and deploys most of its budget on labour and other overhead.  The annual income varies widely : just 8% of the respondents reported budgets in excess of 20 million euro, but nearly 1 in 2 operated on budgets of between 300,000 euro and half a million euro.

Stefan Diender, Managing Director of Amsterdam Tourism and Convention Board presented on his organisation’s “hybrid” financial model, while Pere Duran, General Manager of Barcelona Tourism indicated how adept his organisation had become in terms of maximising earned income from bus, TIC and other sales, to the point where annual turnover had reached €35 million.