Cultural differences in association and congress management

It’s an intrepid international organisation that steps into Asia to teach international congress management style to a region that is the fastest growing market for international association meetings. However, when planning negotiations start it quickly becomes clear that things certainly happen and decisions are made in a very different way.

Jenny Salsbury reports in the first installment of a two-part article.

The challenge for the international organiser is to maintain the integrity of the event whilst incorporating cultural features of the region and being certain things will happen according to plan in the Asian context – there is a need to ensure the appeal to the regional audience converts to delegate registrations. Meanwhile, the challenge for the Asian based organiser is the management of expectations across the cultural divide.

Pluses and minuses

Clearly, the reason international associations want to host their congress in Asia is to penetrate the Asian market, to boost attendance at their global meeting and bring Asians into their fold. International associations have a tendency to develop their in-house congress management with a set of established rules and requirements that are taken around the world as a template, come what may. Commenting on this trend veteran PCO Roslyn McLeod of Australia based Arinex cites two main reasons for following this model:

•    Protection of the integrity of the program quality

•    Making money as a direct return to the headquarters 

There are pluses and minuses. “The advantage is that it does drive a higher quality of program which will attract global participants, however, it does tend to diminish the exposure of local speakers unless there is smart management” Roslyn points out.

With this “globalizing” of the congress comes the risk of sanitizing local culture which should run through the whole event, the pride of hosting to showcase “Asian style” can be diluted as a result, often meaning a reduction in drive to increase interest in the international meeting.“There is a gross under-estimation of the benefit of investing in local expertise via its members and suppliers when this type of template is applied” continues Phillipa Seeto of Arinex “Every destination is NOT the same. Invariably the headquarters secretariat is disappointed with the co-operation it does not receive.”

Putting it another way Bangkok based Marcel Ewals of MCI Group states: “Managing expectations of all stakeholders is the biggest problem.” He mentions specific challenges in three main areas:

•    Decision making– The appointed PCO might be responsible for decision making in certain areas which can create huge frictions when the Local Organising Committee (LOC) wants oversight placing the PCO firmly in the middle as “the bad guy” despite following directions from the International Society. 

•    Pricing– It is a common feeling amongst Asian LOC’s that they often feel the need to pay back or honour various contacts for past favours during the build up to the event. “This often leads to the LOC feeling they have a right to subsidize whoever they like” states Marcel, continuing with the point “The belief that “low rates = more delegates” is a common one in the region, this comes at a cost to the event and therefore a loss if income for the society.”

•    The scope of work of the PCO “Scope Creep”– often the LOC’s consider a PCO is purely there to do their bidding and should do anything they want rather than managing a professionally budgeted event.

There is also a matter of staffing levels, in general there are many more staff involved in the running of an Asian congress but it is hard to find the actual decision maker. An Asian client typically feels that the PCO team is understaffed if they only see one person, even though there may be many specialist divisions in the organization working on the project behind the scenes. In this case, most Asian PCO’s work with a key Project Coordinator and a relatively large team of supportive help who have little decision making capacity. 

Summing up, Marcel comments: “Only with a strong and experienced Project Manager who can anticipate the differences early on and start managing the expectations can these challenges be properly steered. In particular, managing “scope creep” requires a personality that can diplomatically address the client, say “no” and explain why.”

Behind the scenes

Speaking for Asian PCO’s Kitty Wong of K&A Conferences in Taiwan states that the business in key Asian cities like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore is pretty much run along western international standard lines but international organisers coming into the region don’t immediately see that behind the scenes things are happening in a different way.

“Coming in to Asia is takes a while to realise how important it is to make friends and build relationships and that the Copy/Paste option is not an option”she states continuing to outline the network of consultants available through the World PCO Alliance (WPCOA).  She feels that sometimes the CVB’s can be quite naive in their approach to inviting international business without spelling out this fact.

In North Asia Japan based Kaoru Shibuta, Managing Director, Congress Corporation sees two main challenges:

•    The language issue– whilst the PCO staff may have high level of English proficiency the suppliers of technical services or food & beverage may only speak Japanese thus meaning the international organiser needs to have someone from the local PCO with them at all times to handle last minute on-site requirements.

•    The growth of regional Asian attendance– due to more regional involvement in international congresses it is increasingly likely that delegates from China, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and others find Japan’s proximity convenient. This means a wider more diverse range of services to meet cultural needs of participants from Asia.

Continuing this angle Jason Yeh, CEO of Taiwan’s GIS Group goes on to state “A main challenge is the need to think beyond just conference organizing. This is faced by not only the Asian based PCO companies but also by PCO companies worldwide. In other words, the new expectations from clients' are focused not only on services, logistic management and financial results but also on attendees' unique experiences of learning and networking. Therefore the companies, in this particular industry, need to change their mind set.”