IAPCO and AIPC Announce Strategic Collaboration

Senthil Gopinath, ICCA CEO – Sven Bossu, AIPC CEO - Kai Hattendorf, UFI CEO - Ori Lahav IAPCO President, at the last AIPC congress in Geneva.

On October 25th, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between IAPCO and AIPC, with the aim to establish a strategic partnership around three axes, all focusing on creating a better, in-depth understanding of the activities of the member organisations: research, visibility, and education.

Julianne Jammers, Board Member of AIPC said: “Alliances will be important to our industry. As IAPCO is an organisation of our clients this should be a step to getting closer in terms of understanding common challenges and managing expectations.” This was echoed by the President of AIPC, Greg O’Dell: “The pandemic has clearly demonstrated that the best way to grow as an industry is to learn from each other. A structured and structural collaboration with IAPCO will definitely support this process.”

When it comes to research, IAPCO and AIPC will conduct a joint yearly research activity, the results of which are of benefits to the members of both organisations. The first activity will be on the different aspects of hybrid events and the results will be shared with the IAPCO and AIPC members by the time IBTM takes place.

As for visibility and education: IAPCO and AIPC will create different forums, allowing to exchange knowledge on specific topics of interest to the member associations and will also leverage existing communication channels to facilitate that exchange.

Ori Lahav, President of IAPCO said: “Having clear understandings and an appreciation of stakeholders’ objectives will remain of utmost importance as IAPCO members continue to drive economic recovery of cities and knowledge-exchange between communities. The strategic collaboration with AIPC will further enhance the value of services PCOs and Convention Centres deliver to their clients. Research will provide the needs assessment; education will provide us with the tools and visibility across our networks and our own communities will strengthen relationships and drive results. We are thrilled to establish such a valuable partnership with AIPC.” 

IAPCO and AIPC have a shared ambition: raise the standards of service to excellence. This collaboration is another step of making this a tangible reality and the teams of both organisations are looking forward to co-creating value for the respective memberships.