30 members from France, Belgium and the Netherlands participated in the ICCA France-Benelux Chapter Summit held this month at Le Palais des Congres de Paris (February 6-7, 2012). This one-day event was a great opportunity to learn about some of the latest industry trends from expert speakers: Ben Hainsworth from the European Society of Cardiology presented the new destination selection process which is going to be implemented for all their congresses, and James Bedford and Deirdre Jarvis from Cisco Systems presented a simultaneous live and virtual session on Hybrid and Virtual Meetings with speakers from their headquarters in San Jose, California.

One of the highlights of the event was a new idea for a session open to abstracts from the different members. On the general theme of “What is your greatest challenge in winning international business and what creative solutions have you found to overcome it?” four different members came forward to share their success story with their peers.

“Feedback from post-event evaluations were extremely positive: all the participants thought that the event met their primary objectives, the speakers were graded at 83% excellent or very good, 92% enjoyed the networking opportunities, and most important of all, 100% of participants say they will come back next year!” concludes Marta Gomes, Congress Department Director of Viparis and Chairperson of the ICCA France-Benelux Chapter.

A feeling shared by the participants: “An interesting and thought provoking session. I look forward to the next one”; “I had time to do some networking and liked the idea to share our ‘success’ stories”; “A great way to, within a small group, exchange ideas and interact”; “It was an inspiring summit!”.