Who invented DMC?

It’s always been my dream to do something special for DMCs! But I don’t know what exactly. Do you even remember who came up with this name? Destination Management Companies. And what do these people actually do? EUROMIC has sent me a nice text about the sore point ‘de-intermediarisation’. Are DMCs and professional conference and incentive organisers even necessary? Can’t a corporate client just do everything by himself? In the cover interview for the upcoming MIM 95 magazine, Christophe Verstraete, SITE Belux Chapter President and Executive Director EUROMIC takes a strong stand. Definitely worth reading! But I also owe you a lesson Meetings & Incentive History. In 1982 EUROMIC’s Swedish member – Tom Risbecker – came up with the word DMC. He wanted to distinguish the function of its members from those of ‘Ground Service Operators (tourism). The Destination Management Company specifically aimed to serve the new – not yet named – Meetings Industry. So it all began in Sweden. Couldn’t there be an annual Nobel prize or Risbecker prize for DMCs? And who knows where the term Convention Bureau was invented? But that’s for another history lesson.