ICCA launched another extension of its Big Data Search tool at the record-breaking ICCA Congress in Buenos Aires, allowing the leading suppliers to the international association meetings industry to find potential sponsors for the meetings they organise.
Based on websites of international association meetings (as included in the ICCA Association Database) the new tool analyses what sponsors have been involved in past-, or future confirmed events. As a result, 16,000 unique sponsors are identified who have high potential to be a sponsor of new events.
The tool gives ICCA members the option to filter the database of potential sponsors based on keywords related to the research field of the association meeting. It presents a list of potential sponsors, the number of association meetings they have been involved in and the details of those events.
ICCA CEO Martin Sirk said: “Our new Strategic Plan envisages that we become the essential Global Knowledge Hub for any data and information related to international association meetings. This latest Big Data tool is one more step on this very ambitious journey.”
The tool was developed in partnership with ICCA member Human Equation, a Montreal-based specialist in online and interactive marketing, and Big Data services and solutions.
“The platform is another result of ICCA’s desire to innovate which has fuelled our partnership for the last three years. Moreover, we are always thrilled to see the receptivity and positivity of ICCA’s members regarding the new tools we develop”, says David Brochu, Human Equation’s Chief Strategy Officer at Human Equation.
Finding local ambassadors
Next to this new Big Data tool to find potential sponsors, ICCA’s Big Data Search functionalities give ICCA members an amazingly simple way to search vast public databases of academic content and contacts, and to link the results to the structure of ICCA’s own Association Database, enabling them to identify local representatives who could help them to bid for an international association meeting. Utilising the databases of Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search, ICCA members are able to identify leading academic contacts in specified cities and regions, related to a specific meeting in the ICCA Association Database or a specific meeting subject. Finding these local “ambassadors” is a crucial step in preparing a successful bid to host the next edition of an association’s international meeting.
As well as the Big Data Search tool, ICCA is offering Human Equation’s Lead Analytics tool as an additional free member benefit, which identifies organisation names and tracks online behaviour of website visitors.
The ICCA Congess is taking place 1-4 November in Buenos Aires, Argentina with 766 delegates from 66 countries; a record number for any ICCA Congress in the Americas.
Houston awarded 2019 ICCA Congress
ICCA President Nina Freysen-Pretorius announced at the 54th ICCA General Assembly in Buenos Aires that the city of Houston will host ICCA’s 2019 Congress.
“Never has a bidding city received so much support from members in other countries within their region, and this, coupled with this bid’s technical excellence and creativity, meant that the Board had no hesitation in making this decision”, stated Nina Freysen-Pretorius.
Numerous ICCA members and destinations in Mexico and Canada wrote letters of support, as well as other US destinations, demonstrating that the whole region was strongly behind Houston’s latest campaign to represent the North American region in ICCA’s global rotation cycle.
Daniel Palomo from Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, who is also North American representative on the ICCA Board of Directors, reacted to the news: “This is the fourth time Houston has bid to host ICCA’s global community, so I’m really delighted that our commitment has been recognised, and that we finally have the opportunity to turn our creative ideas into reality. We are determined to generate real business opportunities not just in our own city but for our colleagues across the region, and to introduce delegates to the many reasons why Houston is such a successful meetings destination, as well as giving them a warm Texas welcome!”
The last time ICCA met in the US was in 1987 in Albuquerque, NM. Therefore by 2019 it will be 32 years since an ICCA Congress came to the US.
The ICCA Congess is taking place 1-4 November in Buenos Aires, Argentina with 766 delegates from 66 countries; a record number for any ICCA Congress in the Americas. After this year’s Congress in Buenos Aires, ICCA will move to Sarawak, Malaysia in 2016, Prague in 2017, and Dubai in 2018.
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