Meetings Week Poland 2014

Plethora of conferences at the National Stadium

Between 17 and 21 March 2014, the National Stadium's Conference Centre will be hosting Meetings Week Poland, a true marathon of conferences and events promoting the meetings industry in Poland. From Monday to Friday, you will be able to participate in educational and networking meetings, learn how to plan and organise a conference or a corporate event so that it would be a success and meet the best experts in Poland who might assist you with that. During those five days, five different events will be held by the leading organisations in this sector. Meetings Week Poland is organised for the second time under the auspices of the Ministry of Sport and Tourism. The organisers would like to invite not only the members of the meetings industry, but also all existing and potential clients: conference planners and event employers, as well as the media and supporters from business environment institutions and persons responsible for municipal and regional development.

The origins of Meeting Week Poland
Decision on the organisation of the project entitled Meetings Week Poland was made on the basis of a marketing agreement concluded in autumn 2012 between four Polish meetings industry organisations: the Conferences and Congresses in Poland Association (SKKP), Meeting Professionals International (MPI Poland), Events Industry Association Poland and Stowarzyszenie Organizatorów Incentive Travel (Society of Polish Incentive Travel Organizers). The project of a several-days-long conference, entitled Meetings Week Poland, was initiated by MPI Poland during the industry organisations debate held at ITM Business Tourism fair in Warsaw on 24 January 2013.
The aim of Meetings Week Poland is to achieve the effect of scale to prove the importance of the meetings industry for the national economy and to gather persons from the whole industry in one time and place to express opinions that are essential for the future of professionals responsible for the implementation of various events, conferences and congresses.
 
Who should participate?
The organisers of Meetings Week Poland 2014 invite representatives of marketing, HR, PR, sales, purchasing departments, persons in charge of organising events in companies and institutions, agencies operating in the meetings industry, representatives of suppliers, including hotels and conference and fair centres, multimedia companies, catering companies, carriers and journalists.
 
The importance of the meeting industry
Meetings industry is a term which is globally used, with increasing frequency, to denote the amount and the growing importance of the sector of specialised services related to the organisation of conferences, congresses, fairs, expositions and events in various professional areas. Every year, Poland hosts several dozen thousand meetings serving diverse business client purposes. Such meetings have always been important for companies, institutions and organisations. Modern remote communication tools, including the omnipresent Internet, do not decrease the role of meetings at all; on the contrary, they evoke the need to contact partners or contractors face to face. Nevertheless, modern meetings evolve and open to new tools and expectations of the younger generations. It is in such a new ambitious form that conferences will remain a leading tool of marketing communication, with the highest efficiency in transferring knowledge, building emotions and creating the attitudes of human teams.

Programme

17.03.2014. Poland - Meetings Destination
The initiator and organizer of Poland - Meetings Destination is The Warsaw Voice Conferences, part of The Warsaw Voice Multimedia Platform group and the originator and organizer of events such as Warsaw Economic Hub, an annual international conference showcasing the international potential of the Polish economy and promoting Warsaw as one of the fastest developing economic hubs in Europe. The sixth Warsaw – Economic Hub conference was held at the Warsaw Stock Exchange building Nov. 27 under the auspices of the Warsaw Stock Exchange,the International New York Times and The Warsaw Voice.
Primary objective—to accelerate significantly, by a common effort, the development of the meetings industry and inbound tourism. This will be served by the key elements of the Poland – Meetings Destination concept:
Inspiration, including being inspired by specific legal solutions or case studies from abroad, but also by the exchange of domestic experience; a search for well tried and tested solutions enabling investment in infrastructure and support for the promotion of Poland, at both the regional and national levels;
Initiative – conceptual, strategic and legal initiatives leading to the formulation, promotion and implementation of specific institutional and regulatory changes, as well as education, promotion, and efforts to persuade and enlist allies for the development of the industry;
Consultation, through reviewing projects and solutions proposed by various institutions, including governmental or parliamentary ones, which is expected to lead to the optimization of applied solutions;
Coalition, which means mutual support—delivering on declarations—of all communities, organizations, institutions and individuals interested in the dynamic development of inbound tourism and meetings industry in Poland.

17.03.2014. Meeting of regional Convention Bureaux (POT) - closed meeting

18.03.2014 Event as a business tool in the promotion of places and regions (SBE)
Today, potential of multimedia and power of the Internet provided marketing operations with a new direction. It sometimes seems that most of current communication and sales strategies are based on multimedia campaigns coupled in social media. However, even the most breathtaking forms appearing on the screen will not substitute experience a participant of the EVENT may be exposed to. In the core of the event, we absorb it with all our senses. These paths are stored in our minds without our interaction, and if there are nice, we gladly return to them. Not only in our memories, but also by going to this extraordinary place or even talking about it with our friends.
EVENT plays a very important role in building and reinforcing the place brand.
Often, it is a core, around which the communication and sales concept is created. Especially, if this is a long-term, cyclic event that engages local entrepreneurship and self-governments. Fests, picnics, fairs, tournaments, shows, rallies, championships are the attractions that are to lure tourists and promote a given place or region. Organized properly to the circumstances, target and place, they will bring a concrete and long-term return on investment.

19.03.2014 SOIT Academy – The power of motivation
The term incentive has entered Polish vernacular for good and incentive travels are often and eagerly used motivational tools. It is relatively easy to motivate people offering them great trips to amazing places.  This is common knowledge for all those who either tried or went on such incentive travels.  However, what to do if, for various reasons, incentive travels are not an option in a shorter or longer perspective? What can make us "keep rolling"? There is probably no single correct answer to this question. As different as people are, so are their motivations. One thing is certain: motivation is indispensable in any area of our lives, both personal and professional. The Society of Polish Incentive Travel Organizers would like to invite you to a meeting entitled The power of motivation. Being experts in incentive travels, a tool generating an immense power to motivate and influence people, we would like to motivate you and to inspire you.  Get ready for a day filled with meetings with extraordinary people full of passion, involvement and internal motivation. High dose of positive energy and unique experiences guaranteed.

20.03.2014 MPI Poland Club training
When managing events, we should seek support in new technologies. Planning the spectrum of information, plans, arrangements, changes is bothersome and often makes us postpone things. Luckily, there are many online applications and tools that support and facilitate management of such projects as event: basecamp, registration and participants management systems, and, in particular, many PC and mobile applications. They are gradually becoming an inherent part of events, ensuring e.g. access to necessary information for participants. During our training, we will try to review the techniques that can be used during event organisation planning and to discuss the most promising ones in detail.

20.03.2014.  9th Student Scientific Conference IMEX-MPI-MCI Future Leaders Forum Warsaw
The Future Leaders Forum programme has been designed so as to encourage the best and the most talented students to develop their career in the meetings industry. The conference programme is based on all-day long workshops led by professionals from the global business tourism industry. Future Leaders Forum provides students with a unique opportunity to make new acquaintances in the meetings industry and to improve their knowledge from the global perspective. Every year, international professionals share their knowledge about the opportunities offered by the industry and help students enter the fascinating world of business tourism. Over 90 per cent of students who participated in the event stated that they were more willing to take up work in the meetings industry after the conference. IMEX-MPI-MCI Future Leaders Forum Warsaw 2014 is already the 9th edition of this event in Poland. Respective conference panels have been prepared so as to share the general knowledge about the meetings industry with students and to present career opportunities in this sector. Thematic sessions are also aimed at motivating the participants, inspiring them and explaining the objectives of successful networking, which is an important component of each industry. During the special round-table discussion, students meet selected experts from a given segment of the meetings industry in smaller groups, which enables them to talk directly to professionals from all over the world and to ask them more detailed questions. In addition, under Future Leaders Forum the competition IMEX University Challenge is organised. The competition provides the students with an opportunity to show their creativity in event planning. The winners of each semi-final of the University Challenge will participate in the largest fairs in the meetings industry: IMEX in Frankfurt, where selected students will present their projects. The main prize is the participation in the MPI World Educational Congress. To date, over 1,000 students from 15 universities participated in the previous editions of the competition in Poland. The event is organised by the Warsaw School of Tourism and Recreation and by the Vistula University (Vistula University Group).

21.03.2014   2nd conference "Meeting standards: specifications, guidelines, practice" (SKKP)
One of the factors that affects the condition and visibility of a given economic industry is its transparent image in terms of common norms and standards of operation of its participants. Agreement on a system of guidelines for standardisation of the meetings industry in Poland seems a natural stage of development and quality of perception among other areas of the economy. Therefore, the aim of the 2nd conference "Meeting standards: specifications, guidelines, practice" is to develop a set of norms and standards in the Polish meetings industry.
Opening the conference, introductory speeches:
„Standardisation of services and the strategy of economic development in Poland”
„Systematic norms in the area of services” - Zygmunt Niechoda – Polish Committee for Standardization
„Standardisation of services in the meetings industry on the European and global market”
Panel sessions - „world cafe"
1.    Terminological standards 
2.    Business process – objective standards
3.    Professional standards for employees
4.    Standards for relationships with customers, business partners and the surrounding environment, including natural environment 
Press briefing of the organisers