Since I joined AIPC in May 2020, the financials have been a bit of a rollercoaster. Revenues went from €723K in 2019 to €392K in 2021 and have now rebounded to close to €700K. In the same period, we went from 191 members to 167 and now – for the first time ever – we have more than 200 members. I think this is not unlike many other associations and we were fortunate that 67% of revenues is related to membership and business partner fees, not to events.
However, the turbulent period did make us think carefully about our cost structure, which was quite fixed at that moment. AIPC was using an association management company, which delivered a great service, but at a cost (expressed in the form of a monthly retainer) which we could no longer afford. So we decided to switch to freelancers and to focus on “core”. It is a model we have maintained since then and which allows for a certain level of flexibility.
Another heritage from the past was the way our newsletter was created. It was a 3-montly newsletter, beautifully designed and printer-friendly. However, there was a need to both increase frequency – in order to keep our community connected and informed in a world where face-to-face meetings were no longer possible – and to reduce cost. So we switched to a basic monthly newsletter, which still looked good on screen but no longer was fit to print, which made sense in a digital world going.
Revisiting every cost
And next to switching to freelancers and changing our newsletter, we revisited every cost and checked it on two things: does it deliver value and what is the most effective way to deliver that value. It is not a fun exercise to do, but it does provide you with an in-depth view on the functioning of the organisation.
Coming out of the pandemic, we felt resilient and in control — but we were proved wrong. While we were able to organise our educational and other events again, costs were soaring. On top of that, attendance was significantly lower than before, due to restricted budgets and — in some cases — ongoing travel limitations.
So once again, we had to shift gears. Instead of trying to organise everything centrally, we moved to a decentralised model. This allowed us to do three things: expand our geographical reach, keep costs under control, and create a scalable approach to delivering value to our community.
The AIPC Academy is a great example of this in action.
The Academy is the flagship educational programme of our association. It’s a 5-day bootcamp for upcoming convention centre leadership, touching upon all aspect of convention centre management. Until three years ago, there was one edition per year, taking place in Brussels. And while they were – and are – amazing gatherings of venue professionals, we were missing out on communities who could not make it to Europe. So, we went local, starting off with a Canada Academy in collaboration with Convention Centres of Canada, who took care of the local “heavy lifting” (venue and housing sourcing, local speakers, etc.). Next up was the Africa Academy, where we had an amazing local project manager (Esmaré Steinhöfel) and the support of ICC Cape Town. And this year, we had our first ever Australia/New Zealand Academy, with another amazing local project manager (Stephanie Martin, Director of Sales & Growth at Revstar Group) and the support of the Melbourne Exhibition & Convention Centre.
Flexible & Decentralised
While this – going flexible and decentralised – might not seem rocket-science, it was a big jump for AIPC. There were a couple of lessons learned (for example that WhatsApp is the only communication channel in Africa), but the overall outcome in terms of delivering value for our community has been extremely positive.
We have increased our geographical reach, diversified our revenue streams by doing so and we have created a model which is scalable. Which will feed into creating new value and new stories to tell.
This article was written by Sven Bossu, CEO of AIPC, the international association of convention centres. AIPC represents a global network of over 200 leading centres in 55 countries with the active involvement of more than 1000 management-level professionals worldwide.