BBT Online

June is the season of board elections in Belgian association land and so we see a new board at BAPCO, BHA and Initiative.

BBT Online spoke with the new presidents - including Site President Belgium, elected in December last year - to get not only their view on the overall situation in the meetings & events industry, but also on the challenges they see ahead and – why not – their wishes for their association and their members in the future.


Anne De Smet President BAPCO Belgium Association of Professional Conference Organisers www.bapco.be		Jacques Vitu President BHA Brussels Hotel Association website under construction

Anne De Smet of Momentum, newly elected BAPCO President spoke mainly about an unexpected challenge that has reared its head with regard to the Flemish members who have been advised by Toerisme Vlaanderen that they are working in violation of the 2007 law on travel agencies. In a nutshell: Toerisme Vlaanderen consider PCO’s to be ‘negotiators’ of hotel rooms and therefore on par with a travel agent and so they should also have a travel agent status with all the financial and other implications this entails. The long and short of this situation is that Anne and the BAPCO board will enter in negotiations with Toerisme Vlaanderen and hope to obtain a solution that will be favourable for all. An ideal situation would be a recognized and separate status for PCOs, a recognition of the specialist knowledge and know-how necessary to be a fully fledged PCO. Click here to read more …..		After the departure of Patrick Bontinck to head up BITC, Jacques Vitu, General Manager of Hotel Amigo was elected President of BHA, the Brussels Hotel Association. Jacques sees as one of his main responsibilities the need to – contrary to Belgian politics – unify all the different efforts by BITC, Toerisme Vlaanderen and OPT for the promotion of Brussels. Quite a task, sceptics would say nearly an impossible task, but nevertheless a necessary goal if we ever want to make of Brussels a major worldwide player both on the leisure and the Convention (MICE) market. He will be creating different workgroups to attack the different problems and especially on the MICE market will work closely together with Square, the transport companies etc… The main objective remains to attract major congresses to the Belgian Capital which will require the different instances not only to work together but also to foresee the necessary budgets and investments. Click here to read more …..

Dries Jacobus
President Site Belgium

The Society of Incentive & Travel Executives

www.site-belux.org

Dries Jacobus of Borealis and Site Belgium President since a couple of months speaks from the heart about the main challenges that occupy him and his industry most.

“It is a fact that the past 18 months have been very hard for the industry and it is mostly because of an excellent 2008 that most are able to survive.

One could say that the incentive industry was overlooked and left aside by most and times remain difficult.“

“Politicians and also partly the corporate market have difficulty in understanding the specialized and professional industry we represent. We are still thrown together in one basket with the other tourism and travel companies. Well, if it were my choice I would say we are not even a tourism industry; we are working on the whole in a marketing and communication environment. Travel is indeed part of our service, but we do much, much more than travel. It is also up to our industry to repeat this time and time again, but we have the disadvantage to work in a niche market and therefore our voice is not very loud…but brave nevertheless…!!”

“It is very clear that the market has changed, it is also clear that many companies/corporates take advantage of this situation. It is now up to the organizers to see to what degree they want to engage in a rat race.”

Click here to read more ….

Frank Bouckaert
President Initiative

Belgian Association of Qualified Incentive Organizers

www.initiative-group.be

We also hear fresh from being elected as new President of Initiative from Frank Bouckaert, of De Buck Incentives. A first novelty is the fact that Initiative have reduced the number of board members from 4 to 3, the President will also handle the tasks of Treasurer. The other tasks are divided over the other board members as per their availability. The new board members are Claire Massart of Incentive Destinations and Jean-Pierre Verreck of ATB Incentives.

Frank Bouckaert comments that the first half of the year has seen a prudent revival of incentive travel versus 2009, the annus horribilis. It was remarkable that the month of April saw a great concentration of travel made double difficult by the Icelandic volcano troubles which added loads of extra - unpaid- work to an already difficult period.

Initiative members see a continued revival for the coming 18 months but confirm that the competitive environment has changed a lot in incentive land especially because of the arrival of new small companies started by well-known incentive personalities who now fight for their place in the sun.

Click here to read more ….