Glasgow Convention Bureau Launch Their Positive Impact and Legacy Team

Glasgow Convention Bureau has this month launched its Positive Impact and Legacy Team, to provide additional support to conference organisers wishing to create a tangible and measurable impact to the wider public when hosting meetings in the city.

There has been a seismic shift in the importance of legacy and public engagement events allied to conferences in recent years, with many Convention Bureaux taking the bold step to move beyond merely measuring the economic benefit of conferences, to also considering the social impact that having the world’s best minds in your city can have on the local community.

With ICCA including Sustainability, Equity and Legacy as one of the key pillars of their Global Associations Meeting Protocol, part of that study reports “working closely with associations to help them achieve their legacy objectives” as the number one strategic priority that associations recommend convention bureau offer as a service.  Glasgow has responded with the implementation of a team dedicated to supporting the delivery of these objectives for association clients.

Made up of representatives from the 3 business units within the Convention Bureau – National Sales, International Sales and Conventions Support - the team has a broad breadth of experience in delivering a wide variety of public engagement and legacy events across the city.

Campbell Arnott, Senior Business Development Manager at Glasgow Convention Bureau, the lead on the project said: “Since 2010, when the World Parkinson’s Congress won the ICCA Best Marketing Award, the team at Glasgow Convention Bureau have supported over 20 associations to meet their legacy goals by working with city partners to amplify public health messaging across Glasgow. This has resulted in two international associations winning ICCA’s Incredible Impact Award in recent years, evidencing the importance of these initiatives to the wider industry.”

Moving forward, the Impact & Legacy Team will be tasked with ensuring all association conferences taking place in Glasgow are offered the support and contacts within the city to realise their legacy ambitions, simultaneously amplifying key public health messages across Glasgow and Scotland.

Dr Lorraine Work, Conference Co-Chair for the award-winning BRAIN 2022 conference said: “As part of BRAIN 2022 we engaged with 600 school children and over 1000 members of the public to educate them on the importance of brain health and its role in ensuring a long and healthy life. We could not have achieved our objectives in terms of amplifying this critical public health message without the support of the team at the Glasgow Convention Bureau. I’m delighted to hear that more associations will benefit from their enthusiasm, experience and professionalism in the future.”