Skift Take
European tourism bureaus and hotels are leading the meetings industry this week in terms of thought leadership around smarter cities and the rise of incentive travel bookings.
The Skift MeetingsIQ newsletter defines the future of meetings and events with an emphasis on disruptive strategies that improve knowledge sharing.
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The Future of Meetings
Interview: Zurich Tourism CEO on the Future of Marketing Smart Cities
By March next year, half of the 10,500 hotels rooms in Zurich will have tablets for guests to order services in the hotel and access destination content supplied by Zurich Tourism. The rest of the rooms should be outfitted by the end of next year.
Martin Sturzenegger, CEO of Zurich Tourism, talked to Skift about how the convention bureau is developing innovative digital strategies like the in-room tablets.
The goal is to enable hotels and other destination partners to be more digitally savvy to engage the next generation consumer. Advanced connectivity will also drive Zurich’s evolution as a smart city of the future. [Skift]
Today’s audience has high expectations for brand experiences. “They’re looking for personalized, exciting events that are bigger, better, cooler, and more engaging—from brands that really understand them.” [FreemanXP]
[Download] How Mobile Engagement Data Creates New Opportunities
49% of event professionals said that getting actionable insights from their post-event data is one of their biggest challenges. [Conference & Incentive Travel/DoubleDutch]
Social Quote of the Day
“Few brands have mastered the art of how to market to Millennials. Rule one: Get out of the way. hbr.org/1NTiesu” — @HarvardBiz on Twitter
Destinations
Dubai may be known as a glittering playground, but as PCMA’s 2015 Dubai Meetings Forum showed, it also serves business travelers as a gateway to Asia and Africa. [Convene]
Destinations Look to Grow Meetings Sector in 2016
Following the international debut of the Qatar Destination Brand at the World Travel Market in London, Qatar Tourism Authority announced the launch of its new sub-brand, Qatar Business Events. [International Meetings Review]
The ‘Beyond Tourism’ Impact Of International Meetings: Why This Changes Everything
Here’s what ICCA CEO Martin Sirk had to say about destinations prioritizing intellectual capital over tourism attributes to engage meeting planners, during the launch of the Netherlands’ new Economic Impact Business Meetings study. [ICCA]
Video Roundup From Social Media Tourism Symposium
Here are 30 videos of sessions from this year’s Social Media Tourism Symposium in New Orleans, including “Tips and Strategies for Reaching the MICE Market.” Also check out the presentations here. [SoMeT]
Hospitality
InterContinental Hotels Europe Pivots Back to Promoting Incentive Travel
InterContinental Hotels launched a new Incentive Options content program last month, which marks a return for the brand toward promoting luxury corporate incentive travel in major European markets. [Skift]
The Lifestyle Hotel Collection That’s Courting the Meetings Industry
Kindred Resorts & Hotels is a new marketing consortia consisting of 58 independent lifestyle hotels, created along the same lines as Preferred Hotels, but with a focus squarely aimed at the corporate meetings market. [Skift]
BMW’s Designworks Inspire Meetings at Crowne Plaza Gerrards Cross Hotel
The innovation principles provided by BMW Group Designworks feature a mix of private working zones that can be re-configured to suit the needs of each host. [Incentive Travel & Corporate Meetings]
Events & Venues
Germany Convention Bureau CEO on Meeting Trends for 2016
Matthias Schultze from the GCB shares his thoughts on trends set to hit the meetings industry next year, including: a greater emphasis on industry expertise as a destination differentiator, the sharing economy, and second tier cities. [Conference & Meetings World]
Inside the Strange, Wonderful World of Youmacon, Detroit’s Japanese Culture Festival
Youmacon offers dozens of panel and speaking events on such diverse topics as “Martial Arts History,” “Philosophy in Video Games,” and one titled, “I Don’t Care if She’s Fictional, She’s Still My Waifu.” [Model D]
IBM Opens Its Artificial Mind To The World
IBM opened up new access this week to its AI system, called Watson, with a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow other companies and organizations to feed their data into IBM’s big brain for analysis. [FastCompany]
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Skift MeetingsIQ is curated by Skift senior editor Greg Oates [[email protected]] for Wednesday distribution.
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Photo credit: The new InterContinental Bordeaux - Le Grand Hotel opened this week in southwest France. IHG