Held on 20-22 March Meetings Week Poland 2019 series of events was attended by representatives of corporations, institutions and trade associations involved in event planning and procurement of services related to travels and business trips, staff of bureaus and agencies specialising in the meetings sector, providers of conference services, representatives of hotels and conference centres, journalists, delegates of local authorities, as well as politicians. “The power of networking” was the leitmotif of this year’s edition.

Polish Tourism Organisation (Polska Organizacja Turystyczna - POT) co-organised some of the conferences and workshops. Teresa Buczak, Head of POT’s Department of Strategy and Marketing, gave the opening speech. On the first day of Meetings Week Poland 2019 she declared that “Technological growth is happening in parallel and has a strong impact on the meetings sector. On the other hand, the discussed industry unquestionably inspires the development of new tools, generates demand for and supply of new channels of communication and its streamlining”.

Teresa Buczak also took part in a discussion panel on the “Value of the market of congresses”, where she was joined by, i.a. Tomasz Zjawiony, President of the Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Katowice, and Paweł Rozen of Warsaw Convention Bureau.

Head of the Department of Strategy and Marketing stressed that “Before we start speaking the language of concepts, we also need to master the language of figures. Supply evidence that the discussed sector is truly significant and provides a city or a region with actual effects in the form of expenditures of visitors, also tourism-related expenses spent on, for example, additional services”. 

Participants of a panel discussion dedicated to the power of synergy in the congress market dealt with the issue of formal and informal partnership. List of speakers included Aneta Książek, Head of Poland Convention Bureau, Katarzyna Cioch of Vistula Group of Universities, and Jacek Ławrecki, holder of the Polish Congress Patron title.

Aneta Książek, Head of PCB POT, assured that “Poland Convention Bureau is building partnership internally and externally. As a department of Polish Tourism Organisation we cooperate on a daily basis with our fourteen international offices all over the world plus with twelve regional and municipal convention bureaus operating in Poland. In addition, we work together with other stakeholders of the meetings industry, including hotel chains and the national carrier”.

Polish Tourism Organisation also co-organised a workshop on how to correctly and effectively write a sponsorship offer.

Furthermore, Meetings Week Poland 2019 featured the unveiling of the very first results of the 2019 Poland Meetings and Events industry Report. Cooperation between Poland Convention Bureau POT and all actively operating regional convention bureaus made it possible to collect and analyse data on 22,000 meetings and events (1,000 more than in the year before) staged for groups of at least 50 participants. Conferences and congresses accounted for more than half of them (55%), corporate events and incentives - for 41%, and trade shows and exhibition - for almost 4%.

Finally, Poland Convention Bureau POT was also a host of Meetings Week Poland’s second day, an annual meeting with regional convention bureaus. This year it featured a brand-new formula that assumed an active participation of municipal and regional convention bureaus in the programme’s agenda. The institutions in question were granted an opportunity to showcase their city/region to participants of the “Poland - smart move” fam trip, who came from Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the US. A “Poland - smart move” industry workshop attended by professional organisers of meetings and events, enrolled earlier and recommended by POT, was also staged for fam trip participants.