Destinations aligning with local goals are turning events into meaningful legacies. Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Rusti_video & image (AI generated)
Social impact and legacy are no longer nice-to-haves. They’re the new standard for business events, and destinations and convention bureaux can take the lead when it comes to designing more meaningful legacies from events and measuring what really matters.
This was the theme explored in a recent webinar hosted by the Global Destination Sustainability movement. It focused on the importance of aligning business event strategies with city development agendas and SDGs (sustainable development goals) and highlighted how the key components of a successful impact strategy include strategic alignment, organisational structure and community and client engagement.
“Destinations and venues are becoming agents of transformation – business events are being looked at and redefined based on their impact,” said Geneviève Leclerc, CEO & co-founder of Meet4Impact, a non-profit organisation helping destinations and associations host more effective, impactful and socially responsible events. “The most successful destination management organisations (DMOs) are clearly at the moment leading with purpose.”
Related: Beyond the event: Creating lasting legacies in Singapore
Metrics are changing
A greater number of DMOs are aligning more strategically with their cities, with development agendas and with SDGs; clients for their part want community engagement, SDGs and proof of impact. This is also prompting a change in business events metrics beyond looking at the number of room nights, considering instead the long-lasting effects for communities.
“DMOs have started to see social impact and legacy in RFPs, which could be framed in a range of ways, such as community engagement or SDG alignment,” said Leclerc. “It is educating the clients, and we are seeing associations and events in general are moving up in their demands for it [social impact]. It’s not about having better or more events, it's really about being a lot more strategic, about how events are going to be transforming your destinations.”
“DMOs have started to see social impact and legacy in RFPs, which could be framed in a range of ways, such as community engagement or SDG alignment.”
Geneviève Leclerc, CEO & co-founder, Meet4Impact
The strategic value for DMOs in looking at social impact and legacy includes stronger bids with client differentiation, storytelling that drives public and political support and the perception of business events as a force for good. Leclerc advises DMOs to start by looking at where events can help support priorities for social, economic and environmental development in their cities. Creating a strong ecosystem will not only help a destination to attract events, but will also help connect events to local gaps and needs, leading to value creation.
“Once that's in place, you can look at how to engage clients, how you talk to them strategically, how you develop impact projects, and how you manage and measure these,” she said.
Some events might incorporate meeting planners cleaning beaches, or doctors helping to paint schools; as Leclerc explains, this type of action responds to a local need, rather than aligning with the profile of event participants.
“If you want to create a meaningful impact that is truly transformative, you need meaningful community engagement two ways, whereas community volunteering or philanthropy is just one way,” she says. “You've got to align locally – so if there are doctors hosting a meeting, they should be working on health projects, if they’re engineers, they should be working on infrastructure.”