International Summit Sets Global Goals for Meeting Industry The meeting business worldwide wants to become a recognized industry with a single "peak body" coordinating its affairs, an "E-Services Center" to provide secure banking for meetings and conventions globally, and educational models for training new industry talent. More than 100 delegates from 21 countries and 21 international meeting organizations worked through these issues at the Millennium Summit for the International Meetings Industry. The invitational conference, called by the Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC), was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in June.
It was a first-ever event for JMIC, a body of 13 multinational meeting industry organizations. The rotating chairmanship is currently held by Meeting Professionals International, with Italy's Vito Marzo as president. "This was an experiment," Marzo said of the Summit. "Our only predetermined intention was to have a group proposal." At the final session, group findings were summarized using an electronic DigiVote system to quantify support for outcomes. Ed Nielsen, president/CEO of International Association of Convention & Visitor Bureaus, analyzed each result.