Jeannie Lim, executive director of conventions, meetings and incentive travel at the Singapore Exhibition and Convention Bureau (SECB), was recently elected as board chair for the BestCities Global Alliance.
Taking over from Jonas Wilstrup of Copenhagen, Lim made her first appearance in her new capacity at last month’s IMEX Frankfurt. With over seven years’ experience at SECB, she will bring a wealth of industry knowledge, understanding and leadership to the role.
In her new capacity, Lim will take on an integral role in maintaining focus and growth at the alliance, which represents 12 CVBs across the globe, as well as spearhead plans to attract quality associations and corporate driven events to Singapore.
When asked how she was going to propel the alliance forward, Lim told TTGmice: “We are now in the process of reviewing the Alliance’s brand and strategy to further strengthen our value proposition. Our goal is for the BestCities Alliance to continue to add value to the business events industry, and evolve in a manner that enables the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts.
“We also hope to widen our industry and community engagement as there is much more that we can accomplish together than we can on our own.”
Several upcoming BestCities activities include the Incredible Impacts Programme that calls for associations to share examples of how they are leaving long-term legacies; a joint study project with Rehabilitation International and GainingEdge to improve accessibility to make events all-inclusive; and the third annual BestCities Global Forum, taking place in Bogotá this December, shared Paul Vallee, managing director, BestCities Global Alliance.
On how successful the alliance has been, Vallee pointed to two conferences that were won through joint efforts – the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT) and International Association for Public Transport (UITP).
WCPT is the sole international voice for physical therapy, representing more than 450,000 physical therapists worldwide through its 109 member organisations. After previously hosting their conference in BestCities destinations Vancouver, Singapore and most recently in Cape Town, WCPT announced they would be taking their 2021 congress to another alliance destination, Dubai.
Similarly, UITP is an association that is a champion of sustainable urban mobility, and is the only worldwide network to bring together all public transport stakeholders and all sustainable transport modes. The association hosted their Young Transport Professionals Seminar in BestCities destination Melbourne last year, and will be heading to Singapore in July.
“Melbourne was able to gather knowledge from other partner cities on past-hosting experience. This included tapping on Singapore’s experience, (where the city will be holding) the LTA (Land Transport Authority)-UITP International Transport Congress and Exhibition for a third year (the first and second conferences were held in 2013 and 2016),” Vallee said.
