Istanbul at PCMA General Assembly
January 2012    PDF Print E-mail
ICVB News

ICVB General Manager Elif Balcı Fisunoğlu represented Turkey at PCMA General Assembly in San Diego between 7-12 January 2012.

PCMA- Professional Convention Management gathered over 3700 industry professionals predominantly from meeting planners in the USA and Canada.

ICVB General Manager Elif Balcı Fisunoğlu is serving as a member of PCMA Global Task Force since 2010, re-appointed to the task force for the year 2012. The Global Task Force previously named International Task Force promotes the value that PCMA Members bring to the international marketplace and defines and identifies areas that will enhance their understanding of doing business overseas. The Global Task Force will work with PCMA Headquarters staff to support and assist in the development of new and existing international programs and offerings.

Speaking to PCMA Daily, Mrs. Fisunoglu said, "PCMA is the most important event for me to attend in order to maintain business relationships, make new contacts within the American meetings industry, learn more about the American meetings market, and create business opportunities for my destination".

With ramped-up virtual components and a dramatically different approach to sessions, the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) attracted what could be record attendance to its annual conference in San Diego last week.

“We have a record number of planners and are hoping for a record overall total,” said outgoing PCMA chairman Susan Katz at a press conference. “I believe we will meet or exceed last year’s total, which was 3,743.”

Also significant is that more than 120 delegates reported they were driven to attend as a result of their virtual participation in last year’s conference.

This shows that “virtual and hybrid events will drive face-to-face attendance,” Katz said.

New approach to sessions

What made this years’ conference different? Among the innovations:

• An opening general session that aimed to emulate the high-profile TED conferences with brief presentations by three high-powered speakers – one of whom appeared virtually, another first

• No discussion of association business during general sessions

• Diversity of session times – some as brief as 30 minutes

• Periods of non-consecutive sessions

• For the second time, the conference was co-located with the Virtual Edge Summit on hybrid and virtual meetings

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