ECM and ICCA form European Partnership

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ECM (European Cities Marketing) and ICCA (International Congress and Convention Association) have agreed to launch a European partnership to solidify collaboration and provide better aligned benefits for their respective members.

The Partnership has agreed to begin a programme of exploring exchange and reciprocity in three areas: educational content, advocacy and a mentor programme. The partnership would implement a flexible framework of collaboration between the associations in order to achieve these benefits without compromising the focus and platform of each member organisation.

Work on the partnership will begin by engaging a series of educational exchanges incorporating each other’s knowledge content into their respective Congresses, develop a mentor programme for newcomers in the events industry and starting to align approaches taken to advocacy activities, beginning immediately.

Senthil Gopinath, ICCA CEO: “We are extremely excited to formalise an already existing long-term partnership and work closely together in moving the meetings industry forward in Europe together with ECM.” Through this partnership ICCA will further enhance its contribution towards meetings industry education.

“With this alliance, ECM and ICCA seal existing links to achieve greater efficiency in key areas, enabling better services for their respective members. We are very proud of this new milestone which outlines ECM development in the Meetings Industry worldwide. In those challenging times, this is also one more step to show the resilience of the Meetings Industry on the way to recovery”, said Petra Stušek, President of ECM and CEO of Visit Ljubljana.