The Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) is looking at offering a new level of education for the business events industry to fill the current gap in Asia-Pacific.
PCMA Asia-Pacific is talking to convention bureaus, corporations and other partners in the region about developing a range of educational products, including official degrees on business events.
“We’re testing different business models, which is what we did here at the Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Event (AIME) 2019,” PCMA’s Asia-Pacific regional business director Antonio Codinach told TTGmice in Melbourne. “We partnered and put together a solid knowledge programme for Monday, which participants can use for the (subsequent days of business),” he said.
Codinach said PCMA will be designing educational programmes for Asia-Pacific from the ground up by listening to the region’s industry professionals and focusing on cities rather than countries.
“What we’ve been doing historically in North America is not going to work in this part of the world…so working backwards through conversations and relationships will allow us to offer relevant products and services,” he said.
“We are in full transition of becoming a global platform for the business events industry but we know we need to provide a lot of local knowledge in what is an extremely diverse region.”
Codinach also said the organisation has “ambitious plans” for the region, with a calendar for up to 20 knowledge exchanges this year including in Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, India, Tokyo, China and Malaysia. “We’re also in conversation with second-tier destinations that might benefit,” he said.
PCMA announced a two-year collaboration with AIME in August last year that would see it produce the key educational components of the annual trade show. The industry organisation has also looked to involve its existing partners from outside Asia-Pacific, as it did with a hackathon event sponsored by LA Tourism at AIME, where the winner of a competition will fly to Los Angeles in June to attend the PCMA education conference.
“I think that is a good mix and we are working on increasing that participation with partners (for the region),” said Codinach.
