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First with the Latest Business Travel News
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COPENHAGEN THE PLACE So much has changed – new buildings & elegant design everywhere – and yet so much has stayed the same, or is even better, which restores one’s faith in conservation & human nature.
The Danes still sound as if someone is strangling them when they speak, but I personally love it – it has a lot more ‘bottle’ than Swedish - and everything I learnt all those years ago started coming back to me. The streets are still alive with the aroma of ‘polser’, those wonderful hot dogs which are to the Danes, what ‘frites’ are to the Belgians. For old times sake I had a ‘bacon dog’ full of pepper mustard. Delicious! I walked and walked and walked – through the pedestrian shopping streets; past basement restaurants I used to frequent serving Danish open sandwiches, Carlsberg & Linie Aquavit to chase the beer!; into the Royal Gardens through which I walked to work every day; and back towards the photogenic harbour area of Nyhavn. You are never far from water, boats and young people who smile. Copenhagen is very definitely a city on a human scale. No wonder the Danes always come out so well in the ‘happiness’ stakes and studies.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY WITH A TOUCH OF ROYAL CLASS    Sadly though, the Princess did not say anything publicly to the assembled MPI masses. Nor could I get an answer to my 3 simple questions:
It’s a shame as it would be great to have a Danish-Australian viewpoint, especially as the younger generation of European Royals is now always closely involved in all types of trade & inward investment promotion. Back to MPI - Mads Ovlisen, former CEO of Danish pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk & current Member of the UN Global Compact Board gave the keynote address. Mads Ovilsen is to Scandinavia & corporate social responsibility what Al Gore is to the US & the environment, although of course the former is softer & more understated.   Some noisy Dutchmen on my table kept on talking among themselves – they were obviously not the slightest bit interested in either corporate responsibility or the environment, but thankfully 99% of the audience was and listened with rapt attention to his message of corporate optimism & hope about the triple bottom line – is it economically viable, socially responsible & environmentally sound? Selected audio reports from different PEC-Europe sessions are available to MPI members. So if you are not yet a member of the world’s leading association for meeting professionals, you know what you have to do – and it’s easy to join online and become a part of a fast-growing phenomenon in Europe.
GREAT LEARNING EXPERIENCE
GREEN VALUES GROW Fiona’s session was full of sensible practical tips & advice. As always she makes you think about the simplest of things and how she/we/you/I can make a real contribution. For best practice, she recommends everyone to look at Manchester City Council’s Green Guide:    I was also impressed by my Copenhagen hotel, the Scandic Webers, and Scandic’s environmental policy outlined in the small booklet I found on my pillow on arrival. And for 3 days no-one touched my towels, although on the 4th they just could not resist!
COPENHAGEN THE BRAND On the practical side we did an exercise on Copenhagen and brainstormed a long list of brand attributes among which were: safe, small/compact, water, friendly, fun, design, HC Andersen/fairytale, reinventing, relaxed/easygoing, happy, monarchy, good food……… We then reduced these attributes to 4 meaningful concepts for our brand platform:
And from there we had to find a one word combination of all 4 to express what was distinctive about Copenhagen:
The best definition I could find on the internet was from an old friend: So there you have it - a new brand for Copenhagen. I heard later that Copenhagen is planning to re-brand itself as the Capital of Scandinavia, for fun and a good time maybe, but otherwise I’m sure some of their best clients - the Swedes, Norwegians, Finns and Icelanders would have something pretty strong to say!
GREAT VENUES, GREAT FUN The venues for networking and the social programme were equally impressive:    At The Opera we were treated to Hans Christian Andersen by an actor from the Royal Danish Theatre; to a ‘Beatles-inspired’ modern ballet by two dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet; and to an eclectic mixture of operetta, opera, rock etc. by three singers from the Royal Danish Opera, all followed by a buffet of Danish specialities in the Opera’s spacious and beautiful public spaces overlooking the harbour and the lights from the city. Custom House, next to the famous Nyhavn, is Conran’s latest trendy venture and consists of 3 restaurants-in-1: a Grill, an Italian and a Sushi Bar. In addition, you can take it over as MPI did for a party or organise small private dinners for up to 22 in the 1st floor Board Room in what was the original Copenhagen customs’ building. Wallmans (750 for dinner/1000 for a meeting) in Copenhagen’s Circus Building is simply spectacular in every sense. I am not a great lover of floor shows and casino-style entertainment, but Wallmans was spectacularly different. For the MPI Closing Night Gala it breathed life, fun & great music, including a fantastic group of Elvis impersonators who set the evening on fire.
One event I didn’t make – the body can only take so much – was the Rendezvous Europe night in the Concert Hall Foyer in Tivoli. Tivoli Gardens are of course closed during the winter and don’t reopen until April, but the Concert Hall is another major year-round venue. And it was another great party – sorry, networking event.
MOTOR CROSS THE ØRESUND   Well, the Mersey still has its ferries, whereas over the Øresund they have built a spectacular bridge for both vehicles & trains. Opened in 2000, it unites a population of 3.5m in Denmark & Southern Sweden, and makes Copenhagen & Malmö into a very attractive destination for all types of meetings and exhibitions. Intelligently branded as One Destination · Two Countries, the area offers more than 28.000 hotel rooms, as well as everything the Our small group of specialist meetings industry journalists had a quick ‘Taste of Southern Sweden’ on the 1st day with a simple but delicious Swedish salmon lunch in the Torso TwistedRestaurant, right next to Malmö’s latest landmark – the 55 storey Turning Torso tower, designed by celebrity Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava. The top two floors are available for meetings and must have spectacular views which for some strange reason we were unable to experience for ourselves. More info on One Destination-Two Countries:
GETTING TO & AROUND COPENHAGEN The Copenhagen TravelPass is an ideal green alternative for meeting & incentive organisers, and avoids the need for expensive & time wasting coach transfers in a city with an efficient public transport network. It permits 24hr travel in the Greater Copenhagen Region on buses, trains & metro. Wonderful Copenhagen has excellent ‘design’ print with sensational photography to tempt you & your clients to hold your events in the city.
LET’S GO LONDON 2008 Then, as the official hosts of the next MPI-PECE 2008, London sponsored a brilliant fusion buffet lunch on the last day, before taking over the baton in style from Copenhagen at the Gala Night @ Wallman’s.    There’s talk of 1000 participants in London, but hopefully that’s just a good-natured bit of UK hype & spin, and the real figure will be a healthy increase to around 750. It’s important that MPI Europe retains its human touch and doesn’t grow into a massive event, where you don’t recognise anybody and serious networking loses its meaning. As we see constantly in the industry, smaller learning meetings are rapidly becoming the meetings of the future.
A MUST FOR EVERY MEETING PLANNER
IN SHORT Where else but at MPI PEC-E can you find:
With only 500-750 participants, it’s still on that all-important human level. BBT Online would like to thank Scandinavian Airlines, Wonderful Copenhagen, VisitDenmark & MPI for making it possible for us to take an active part in this Professional Education Conference. It is a tribute to them all that my article could have been twice as long…… if I had the space and you, the reader, the patience! An exclusive report for BBT Online from Copenhagen, Denmark
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COPENHAGEN STAGES WONDERFUL DESIGN SHOW FOR MPI
On a very North American second day, many of us attended a branding session with Dr. Jim Taylor (no relation!) of The Harrison Group in Connecticut. 
meetingplanner could wish for in the realm of technology, AV & IT facilities.
‘Learning Meetings & Conferences in Practice’ from the home-grown Danish team of Steen Elsborg & Ib Ravn. It’s a practical guide to all the different techniques they have researched and developed to make meetings more active and a lot more fun. I’m not sure how you get hold of it, but Ib Ravn will tell you.