Palais des Congrès, Montréal ©Palais MTL & Caroline Bergeron Sometimes you need to look outside your industry to get inspired. In this case, I did not have to look very far. Brussels Airport did a brilliant campaign, demonstrating the power of purpose and I believe we can learn a lot from it.
It struck my eye when driving back home and nearly made me have an accident: a campaign around a public building, focusing on purpose. It was about Brussels Airport. Now, it is important to know that over the last months, press coverage on the airport was mainly around noise and pollution and I am not questioning those impacts. But here, it was not about the traveller experience, the tax-free shopping, etc. The message was: “08:10. Arrival new heart for Lisa” and it showed a medical officer carrying a special case on the tarmac. And at that moment, the airport – where I spent way too much time – became something very different.
It made me think profoundly about purpose, both when it comes to AIPC and our global community. Convention centres, not unlike airports, can be perceived as really big and not always pretty buildings and causing disruption without giving anything back to the community they are physically embedded in. And while this is factually not true, we are not always great at bringing the alternative story, which is about bringing communities together to build our future.
And we have some amazing stories to tell. One example is AIDS 2022, the International AIDS Conference, held in Montréal: the conference helped disseminate research findings, brought scientists together with policymakers and communities, and contributed to the wider discussion about how HIV prevention and treatment should evolve. The research presented resulted into consolidated evidence in 2023 and clinical guidance in 2024, impacting the lives of thousands of people. And while it is of course not the Montréal Palais de congrès achieving this result, the congress was a crucial step for making this happen.
Articulating this more clearly and making sure that this message is heard outside our industry would have a double impact.
On one hand, the “outside” world would get a better understanding of the power of congresses and the importance of convention centres as platforms for bringing communities together. It could result into more understanding and support from policy makers, attract young talents and get more support from the local community.
On the other, it would create a sense of pride within the AIPC Community. Because sometimes we forget what we do, focusing on sales, planning, operational delivery, etc. We don’t take a step back and say: “we made this possible”. Instead, it is ‘upward and onward’ to the next conference.
Unfortunately, AIPC does not have the budget for a global advertising campaign – not even for a national one. But what we can do is make sure we collect the stories and share them whenever possible – at our own events, when speaking at events from other organizations, when teaching at high-schools and universities… Because what we do can have an amazing and long-lasting impact on both local and global communities and we should be very proud of that.
Sven Bossu is CEO of AIPC, which represents a global network of over 200 leading centres in 55 countries with the active involvement of more than 1000 management-level professionals worldwide.