Trust, Sharing & Exclusivity: Partners Mean Opportunities and Support

Partnerships increase expertise, knowledge and resources available to offer better products and services. At European Cities Marketing (ECM), partners are fully part of the community and, as such, share their insights, ideas and perspectives on the current challenges we are facing and on the industry in general. They provide regular research documents to our members, guiding them on latest trends. Last but not least, members benefit from new and exclusive business opportunities thanks to these privileged relationships.

Research and trends reports

ECM members can improve their competitiveness through a series of reports provided by the association and its partners each year. The ECM Knowledge Group Research & Statistics publishes annual reports on the evolution of hotel bednights in European cities (ECM Benchmarking Report), trends in the conference and business meetings market (ECM Meetings Statistics Report), funding of our members (ECM Funding Survey). Quarterly, the group also publishes a report focusing on short-term tourism (ECM City Tourism Monitor) and reports provided by ECM partners on the hotel industry in Europe (ECM-MKG European Destinations Observatory) the air travelling behaviour (ECM-ForwardKeys Air Travellers’ Traffic Barometer), residents’ sentiments (ECM-TCI Research Residents Sentiment Index), bookings (ECM-ADARA EMEA Insights), Short-term rentals (ECM-Transparent Short-Term Rentals Report)… ECM partner Toposophy also offers yearly reports to ECM members on trending topics.

Throughout the years, ECM Research & Statistics Knowledge Group has built this solid network of research partners to provide members with regular and timely information on current challenges. You can’t manage what you can’t measure… Partners are instrumental in providing knowledge and working with ECM members. In return, they learn and have a deeper knowledge on city tourism challenges.

The ECM Summer School

The ECM Summer School, the meetings industry educational programme, provides each year 60 delegates with the basis and know-how to progress a rewarding career in the sector. We live in an always evolving world, and the meetings industry is no exception. The 2020 COVID-19 crisis has made this statement even more accurate! In 2020, instead of meeting physically, ECM has developed an additional event dedicated to advanced meetings industry professionals including Summer School alumni, called ECM Summer School 2.0.

“It’s a crucial task for top management in each organisation, whether it is a Convention Bureau (CVB), tourist board, congress centre, airline, hotel, DMC, PCO or meeting planner, to train every employee continuously. And during this hard time, let’s not forget to continue this important mission,” says Pier Paolo Mariotti, course leader of the ECM Summer School.

Since 1987, the ECM Summer School sets out the background and context of the meetings industry with a focus on European and international best practices. Together and under the guidance of senior professional leaders from the industry, learnings include, best practice, acquisition of international events, how to adapt to new trends (hybrid meetings, sustainability…) destination sales and marketing strategies and an understanding of the matrix of client decision making.

“This programme is a unique opportunity for young professionals just entering the meetings industry to spend three days with some of the biggest names in our business,” Mariotti adds. “In the current context, this is even more important and relevant for participants to build on their knowledge and learn how we are adapting to this crisis that shook our industry and the entire World. Similarly, the next weeks will be decisive to know what will be the best format to keep on our mission this year.”

The faculty are all members and/or partners of European Cities Marketing and give their time on a voluntary basis. a way of giving back to the meetings industry. Some of them are also part of the recently launched ECM Mentor Programme. 

The ECM Mentor Programme

“We developed many initiatives to stay proactive for our members during this difficult time,” says ECM president Petra Stušek. “With the people at the heart of our reflection, we decided that we had a role to play in the crisis by providing collaborative solutions beyond ECM members and therefore created the ECM Mentor Programme.”

Launched in 2020 during ECM Summer School 2.0, it is a free initiative created to secure networking, relation-building and knowledge-exchange between newly-appointed and advanced professionals in the meetings industry.

Indeed, the COVID-19 has resulted not only in the cancellation and postponement of congresses and conventions but also the majority of industry events that we normally would attend throughout a year. In close collaboration with industry partners, IAPCO, IBTM, ICCA, IMEX and HQ Magazine, the programme is meant to be one of the collaborative solutions in this unprecedented period. Newly-appointed and advanced professionals will have the opportunity, firstly virtually and hopefully physically in the future, to interact, to inspire, to share and grow together in the meetings industry.