What an ambassador can do for you!

I can't think of any other industry in which there's more talked about ambassa-dors than in the association meetings industry. In the first place, I'm talking about professors who act as ambassadors of a convention bureau. Some big cities even have an Ambassador’s Programme or an Ambassadors’ Club. More and more Top Association Executives are talking about curtailing the influence of such a professor/ambassador because they want to limit the emotional factor when picking a destination. The choice for a certain congress place should primarily be based on objective criteria and not the other way round. I firmly support this idea, but I didn't start this blog entry to talk about this ambassador issue.

I'm talking about real ambassadors, like the Dutch ambassador Dr. Hugo Hans Siblesz (right), Her Majesty's ambassador in Paris. Last week, he welcomed about twenty Paris-based associations in his Residence in the heart of Paris. Hôtel d’Avaray is a wonderful setting to make wonderful new contacts. And I have to say, it didn't leave me cold to be invited for this 'linking lunch'. I also saw sparkling eyes among the Dutch suppliers who were almost as well represented as the associations. Well done, Renée Cohen (left), director of Destination Sales at the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions. That's what I call lobbying at a high level. And I heard a lot of Dutchmen talking good French as well. That's nice! In the garden of the ambassador it came to a fine discussion about the motives that some associations have for organising their convention in this or that destination. Sometimes, that can hang by a thread and no ambassador, minister or president can change that. After a lot of conversations with association excutives, I collected a couple of those threads:
1. We only take our conventions to resorts, other destinations don't stand a chance.
2. If there's no boat available at the destination that can accommodate 150 people with a copious dinner, forget about it.
3. We never use purpose built convention centres, only universities with good meeting services.
4. We never go to destinations where there are less than 5 five-star hotels at walking distances.
5. We never go to a Central European country, a metropolis, a Scandinavian country, an Arabian country,... and the list goes on and on.
My question to destination promotors: do you know all of this? Or do you only take the ICCA database into account? My good advice: go into the human portrait of an association as well.