Poland Convention Bureau meets the local and regional congress bureaux

The meeting was held as part of the 10th annual Meetings Week Poland. It was attended by representatives from Łódź, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Kraków, Poznań, Warsaw and Wrocław. In a true sign of the times to come, for the first time in history it was organised in a hybrid formula and attended online by two representatives of the Wrocław Convention Bureau. The meeting was opened by Vice President Marcin Różycki and Deputy Director of Marketing Artur Pielaszek, who welcomed the guests. The opening was followed by a presentation of the activities carried out by the PTO PCB, showcased by Aneta Książek.

The aim of the annual meeting between the PTO and local and regional convention bureaux is to exchange information on joint projects and to align the activities for promoting business tourism in Poland. In 2022 these include the Polish Congress Ambassadors Programme, the Meetings and Events Industry Report in Poland, PTO recommendation and certification programmes, 20 years of PTO PCB, the 2022 ICCA Congress, Destination Poland ICCA Fam Trips and IMEX 2022. The meeting was also a good opportunity to introduce the new Poland Convention Bureau team.

The meeting was attended by a special guest, Mariska Kesteloo, the founder of Word of MICE, who was recently named one of the 10 most influential meeting innovators in 2021 by Congress Magazine. Mariska talked about the power and potential of B2B influencer marketing in times of uncertainty and crisis. She is an ambassador and an advocate for the industry, setting an example and showing the world that Poland is a safe and open country while showcasing it as the #helpzone and #firstohelp.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of PTO PCB, the Gdańsk Convention Bureau donated t-shirts from the match that took place as part of Let’s Meet – a boutique business fair held in Gdańsk on 30–31 March.

The next project we are preparing for is the IMEX Trade Show in Frankfurt, slated to take place from 31 May to 2 June 2022.

This year’s IMEX will once again take place in-person (due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the last edition of the trade show was held in 2019). This format will be conducive to using additional promotional tools. The planned campaign will strengthen Poland’s competitiveness on the international arena as a destination for meetings and events, help sustain the demand for business tourism services and build trust among meeting and event planners after the pandemic and during the conflict in Ukraine.