BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE | 21
Last year Meetings International magazine conducted a series of interviews with some of the titans of the meetings industry.
In this issue we meet Christian Mutschlechner, Director of Vienna Convention Bureau. He has won every conceivable award in the global meetings industry and was former president of the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA). Christian Mutschlechner’s interlocutor is Dr Elling Hamso, MD of the European ROI Institute and a popular international speaker throughout the meetings and events industry. What is their view of the important issues? Which issues are likely to dominate? We discuss travel and meeting management, audience surveys, the significance of music on the outcome of meetings, the art of learning, and we also get a pretty good insight into what it is that makes them tick. Elling Hamso (E H ): I recently organised a project about travel and meetings management for travel and meeting managers. More and more travel managers are being given the
responsibility for meetings planning in their companies and organisations and so have both titles on their business cards. This offers a great potential for raising ROI issues and creating new procedures and is why the ROI approach should be part and parcel of their work procedures. This is an area in which we hope to see changes that help create a more professional meetings community. Christian Mutschlechner (CM ): Absolutely, and undoubtedly a subject area that is very interesting from a meetings industry perspective. There are still many companies who feel that the issues should be kept apart, but all too often we see proof that the issues belong together because all business trips lead to meetings. If we can’t provide the basis for producing good meetings for business travellers then travel planning is of secondary importance. For us in the global meetings industry it’s about being able to offer professional communi2014 No. 13 MEETINGS INTERNATIONAL