From July 3 to 7, Liverpool hosted the Annual Conference of the industry association for professional convention and exhibition centre managers worldwide. Following the crisis year 2009, participants from the International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC) were in a cautiously upbeat mood.
The “crisis isn’t over yet,” AIPC President Edgar Hirt declared at the opening of the international association conference, “but there are growing signs of economic recovery.” Meanwhile the International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC) numbers 166 members in 53 countries. 132 delegates and 51 partners attended its Annual Conference. Michael Hughes, managing director of the consulting and market research company Red 7 Media, presented them in Liverpool with a projection forecasting a rising number of conference-goers worldwide and increasing revenues. This study underpins the prognosis that the industry can now look forward again to a relatively benign and stable overall business climate.
Predictions at the beginning of the year were much gloomier. 1,832 meeting, incentive, congress and event (MICE) professionals worldwide were interviewed for the study FutureWatch 2010. In 2009 the biggest survey of its kind had already presaged both a declining number of meetings and shrinking budgets for the first time in many years. The 2010 study reinforced this trend. Both the 967 planners polled and the 813 suppliers reckoned for the time being on tougher price competition, falling participant numbers and budget cuts.
In Germany too, the meetings industry last year felt the full force of the economic crisis, according to the Meeting & Event Barometer presented this May during the IMEX exhibition. The main finding of the study revealed an eight percent drop in business travel due to the global economic crisis. Conventional business tourism (accounting for altogether 53 percent of business travel) suffered a comparatively moderate downturn of three percent in comparison to the previous year, whereas promotable business trips to congresses, conferences, events, trade fairs and exhibitions registered a waterfall collapse of twelve percent. This had different repercussions on the various supplier groups. While the number of events at convention and conference centres fell by a mere 1.5 percent, special event venues posted a 5.3 percent slide and conference hotels saw their business plummet by 14.9 percent.
The reasons for this lay mainly in event sizes. In 2009 smallish functions with up to 100 participants, which account for altogether roughly three-quarters of events in Germany, were often cancelled. On the other hand, bigger functions with upwards of 500 participants posted a slight increase. This trend worked chiefly to the advantage of convention centres, which are most frequently booked for big events. Last year, despite a marginal decline in the number of congresses, cultural events and anniversary celebrations, they registered a slight uptick in attendance. International events (with a share of at least ten percent foreign attendees) represent the major stabilising element, with around 80 percent of suppliers and 90 percent of event organisers predicting that they will be equally or increasingly important further down the line.
The ITB World Travel Travel Trends Report commissioned from the consultancy IPK International by the ITB Berlin similarly established this March that in the last eight months of 2009 business travel volumes had shrunk worldwide by seven percent. Yet at the same time the majority of MICE professionals were already convinced that business would gather steam again in the industry during the second half of the year.
Martin Sirk, CEO of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), similarly believes that most meeting planners are reckoning on significant growth again this year. The global association head puts this down to the constant growth in demand for meetings in information societies and the ongoing process of globalisation.
Liverpool was a good choice as the city to host an economic comeback by the meetings industry after the deepest financial crisis since the World War II. After all, for decades Liverpool had been a byword for crisis. The northwest English port’s protracted demise had already begun in the early 1950s. Jobs first disappeared at the Port of Liverpool, once the UK’s biggest commercial port and now no more than a middling container facility. Then the shipyards fell into decline. What remained were desolate, run-down working-class districts and a bankrupt city in death throes, having been caught unawares by structural change. Then in 2008 the blue-collar city experienced a triumphant renaissance: Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, became European Capital of Culture. What followed was the regeneration of entire municipal districts. Tourists now throng the once decaying, now newly refurbished Albert Dock, named for Queen Victoria’s German consort who opened the docks in 1846.
At Albert Dock, right next to the brand-new Liverpool Arena concert and sports hall seating 10,000 guests, the Tate Liverpool art gallery – an offshoot of Tate London – invites visitors to spend plenty of time. Restaurants, hotels and bars attract thousands. An iconic cradle of beat music is the Cavern Club in Matthew Street, whose visitors on May 25, 1960 enjoyed the first-ever “beat night” with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, featuring a drummer by the name of Ringo Starr. Bands later destined to become legends played gigs there: the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, The Who, quite apart from the Beatles.
Two copper Liver Birds tower high above this city. The birds depicted in the city’s coat of arms resemble a cross between a cormorant, eagle and griffin and also decorate the red jerseys of Liverpool’s most famous football club. A salt breeze blows in from the Atlantic across the Irish Sea and the River Mersey. “This place rings in the ears of people all over the world,” city guides insist. The ultimate hymn to the city was written by Gerry & The Pacemakers with “Ferry Cross the Mersey”. Nothing better befits the ferry trip across the Mersey and the view of Liverpool’s dockland skyline and its two towering cathedrals than this 1964 hit. It is a classic example of Merseybeat, the Mersey Sound. But for a long time it was the Beatles who drew tourists in their droves. The Beatles Museum is also located on the historic Albert Dock fronted by the Mersey. Book a ticket for the Magical Mystery Tour, climb onto the bus – and in just a few minutes you’ll be transported to another world. The five warehouses today also accommodate other museums, galleries, restaurants, bars and shops.
Culture was the driving force behind Liverpool’s economic comeback. Officials there had followed very closely how the Scottish city of Glasgow – European Capital of Culture in 1990 – transformed itself from the island’s poorhouse into a modern, attractive and economically vibrant metropolis. Even Liverpool’s arch-rival Manchester, itself for many years a synonym for urban decline, has not only extricated itself very creditably from oblivion with an inspired blend of active sports policy and targeted promotion of classical and pop culture, cutting-edge industries, research and teaching, but has since established itself as a seriously competitive, glittering metropolis. And now Liverpool can already boast the second largest collection of art in Great Britain after London.
What is more, the city on the River Mersey possesses one of the biggest convention centres in the United Kingdom in the shape of the Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool. The multifunctional ACC Liverpool – consisting of the BT Convention Centre and Echo Arena, as the two sides of the business are known – holds up to 1,350 delegates. Two seating drums, unique in England, revolve to divide the main auditorium into up to three separate, self-contained spaces providing twice 250 and 850 seats respectively. Organisers also have at their disposal 18 breakout rooms with capacities ranging from 10 to 500.
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