ASSOCIATION NEWS – GainingEdge Report – Use of Intellectual Capital

The international consulting company GainingEdge has issued a second report devoted to destinations and how they use their intellectual capital via leaders sitting on management boards of international associations. The results of the report are based on in-depth research from publicly available sources about associations and on the analysis of the database of the ICCA International Congress and Convention Association.

The aim of the research is to identify and classify strengths of destinations in terms of the number of local leaders in managing bodies of international associations from the meetings industry. The strong and strategic co-operation with these leaders allows destinations to use them more efficiently for the acquisition of international scientific and business events and promote themselves effectively as centres in areas of social and economic development.

Apart from the analysis of associations organising large events for over 500 persons, this year’s report also covers associations that organise smaller meetings. In the ranking of the Top 50 cities concerning meetings for 500 persons, there are 13,488 persons on management boards of associations. This list is topped by Paris with leaders on 644 management boards, followed by Tokyo (509 persons) and Beijing (438). There are no Polish cities in the ranking.

The leaders among the Top 50 countries with meetings for above 500 persons are USA, Great Britain, Germany and France. Each of these countries has over 1,000 representatives in the managing bodies of international associations. For comparison, Poland ranks 27^th, with 295 persons on management boards of international associations.

Among the Top 50 cities where smaller meetings for 200 to 499 persons are held, Warsaw ranks 45^th with 252 persons on management boards of international associations.

The authors of the report emphasise that destinations willing to use their intellectual capital effectively should take the following factors into account:

• Competitiveness of destinations – in the context of available intellectual capital measured by comparing the number of their internationally active leaders with those of their competitors
• Priority business leads – the identification of influential leaders within the scope of international associations allows destinations to engage in smart bidding for the increase of conversion factors and the achievement of business goals
• Concentration on business – according to their potential, destinations can segment the association market and actively engage local leaders from these key segments
• Key industry sectors – knowing who the local leaders of international renown are, destinations have a better understanding of their scientific specialisation and related industry sectors
• Destination branding – cities can use their intellectual leaders for promoting themselves as centres of knowledge in the field of science where leaders are the strongest.

The full report is available here.

Author: Anna Górska – Member of the Management Board of the ICCA International Congress and Convention Association, Advisor to the Management Board of Symposium Cracoviense, Consultant for HelmsBriscoe, Vice-President of the Management Board of the PCCA Polish Conference & Congress Association