It’s nearly conference time again and together with the Executive Group, team, moderators and speakers we’ve been putting the final touches to the programme for Malta.
Conference Update
Our theme “Driving Growth; Diversification, Partnerships & Collaboration” is one which in these turbulent geo-political times a topic governments across the globe could learn from.
We are focussing on how partnerships and collaboration can help us all. Rather then seeing our fellow mobility colleagues as purely competitors we aim to look at how forming partnerships benefits us all.
One of the sessions will be a further update on AI and how it’s helping, impacting or changing our industry.
At a recent team day, we discovered the power of ChatGPT in a new and slightly frivolous way. We fed a team pic into the AI and asked it to dress us in business formal clothes. Then we asked it to picture us on the slopes of the winter olympics. The results are here for all to see! Despite having a good laugh it was sobering to realise the sheer power the large learning models have in terms of how news and social media can be manipulated, with total ease, by anyone, in seconds. Dom spent many years learning photoshop as part of our publishing programmes but that’s an expensive skill that no longer needs to exist. He has also since the pandemic spent many hours learning to use Final Cut Pro to edit our briefings, training and conference films. Another skill that may become, more or less redundant.
There are skilled roles that will no longer exist and apart from the financial ramifications to us as workers, the psychological impact on our sense of self as the skills we are proud of are no longer skills at all will, have an impact. Jon Harman who is moderating our session on AI will be looking at this wider impact and not just on the tools themselves and what they can do.
We just held a Malta Briefing on the event which can watch on our YouTube channel. Thanks to Dana Pick, Carlos Salgado and Ken Krogtoft for taking part as new and seasoned delegates, giving their advice on how to make the most of the event. I’d like to add on behalf of my team and the brilliant speakers and moderators that you don’t miss out on the education and peer sharing that the conference offers. There are some great sessions, from AI to State of the Industry, workshops focussing on immigration, corporate housing and diversification. We also have our two legal clinics. We will run MIM training sessions for which pre-registration is necessary Martina Scharwey and our EGQS Mentors and Lead Auditor will be on hand to answer any questions and Martina will be leading drop in sessions so join in and get your questions answered. Giles Orr and Nic Rattle our education consultants will be with us to guide you through anything you need to know about our MIM programme and our newly launched Peer to Peer mentoring sessions. More details will be announced at the opening session. We also of course have our ever popular Ignite session.
Were we by the sea in Black Tie?
The Gala Dinner is in a terrific venue and as a result we have decided to go Black Tie. This means formal but it doesn’t mean having to wear black, be as colourful as you like! If the weather is kind to us the cocktail reception at the dinner will be outdoors so dress accordingly. That part of the venue is decked so be stilettos or kitten heals may be a challenge.
Executive Group News
Team ski trip??
We just held our first Executive Group (EG) meeting of the year in a secret location which will be a future conference destination. The agendas for these meetings form a review of the work of EuRA since the last meeting and planning of future work based on a 3,6,12 and 24 month plan. Included in every meeting is a financial review and we have been working over the last 7 years to create a contingency fund to ensure continuity of EuRA. We live in uncertain times and we always have. The pandemic taught us all that financial planning is critical for us all and over the years we have used the profits that EuRA has made from the conference to both advance essential projects and create a financial buffer. Currently we are working on new training initiatives with Giles and Nic to plan for the next 10 years of our education programmes. A new initiate which we will be launching in June is to increase the visibility of EuRA and its members through a PR and Communications programme. We reached out to several people in our industry, experts in the field and we will working with Fiona Klomp as our new PR and Comms Strategic Consultant. Fiona has great expertise in the field having run both her own PR Consultancy and heading up ABRA another of our great local mobility associations. You can meet with her in Malta.
At this meeting we also took a long look at our membership demographics over the past ten years and the data led to some very interesting discussions. Since 2015 we have lost 8% of our DSP members. Looking into why (and Maree always asks each member who does not renew their membership) 99% were attributed to mergers and acquisitions and business closures. As we all know we have seen a lot of consolidation over the last decade but what these figures show us is how loyal our core membership is. The largest turnover in members comes from our Supplier Member sector and this is something we have known for decades. Back in the day when we used to pick up the phone and make a call, we would have at least three or four calls a week to the office from companies asking about membership. Of these the vast majority came from businesses who would be joining EuRA as Supplier Members, that is companies whose primary focus is NOT DSP, but one of the many sectors supplying vital services to the relocation industry such as immigration companies and corporate housing suppliers. The team member who answered that call would always be very honest about the fact that membership of EuRA may or may not be a successful way to add to their business. We always encourage supplier members to carefully monitor their ROI on membership. It is very unlikely for example, that a serviced apartment building in Singapore will find direct business leads on the back of attending a EuRA Conference. The cost of membership plus the event and associated travel is expensive. Supplier Members pay the highest rate that DSP’s pay for membership and of course if they’re not members, the conference cost is double. Consequently we monitor the turnover of Supplier Members carefully. We have a large core of long standing members mainly in the immigration and corporate housing sectors and their financial contribution to the association helps us to expand our core programmes.
In the last meeting we had a long discussion about whether Supplier Members would be represented on the EuRA Executive Group and the EG decided that yes we should from 2027.
We recently put out our call for a new EG member to take the place of Irina Yakimenko who completes her term as and EG member in June. Irina has contributed hugely to the EG during her term bringing her acumen, financial savvy and intellect to some very difficult discussions and we all thank her for her dedication to EuRA.
For the first time in over 20 years we didn’t receive a single Nomination Form. The invitation to stand was sent out three times to all eligible members but for reasons we do not know, this time no one stood. What this means for the coming year is we will have 6 EG members and not 7 and next February there will be an election to fill two places as our current President Simon Robins will serve a further year after completing his Presidency in June this year. So if you have ever thought about standing for the EG, make sure to look out for those notices via your email and on our social media channels next February. Serving on the EG does involve a level of commitment and I wonder if this year, when trading conditions are difficult, it was just too much of a commitment for people to make. To serve on the EG you commit to three in person meetings a year somewhere in Europe plus a monthly online EG Huddle in any month where we don’t have a face to face meeting. There is also a commitment to participate in Working Groups to steer any new or potential new projects in between meetings and Huddles as well as the work that each EG Member must commit to for the conference. Each EG member will take responsibility for at least one conference session or workshop and it is their job to ensure the panel stick to the original brief that was agreed at the conference planning meeting which takes place in November.
On the topic of meetings I try my very best to keep the costs down by either meeting somewhere easy to get to and great value (airport hotels are an excellent option) or a future conference location where we have received a response to our (lengthy!) RFP which is within our budgets. If the location is successful in being awarded the contract for the conference we ask for a discount for the board meeting that will precede it. Interestingly as we are going down the route of contracting for 2029 and 2030 and discussing the event and pricing with potential venues, we are seeing more hesitancy than previously in getting fixed prices so far in advance. Trading conditions for the MICE industry are tough. One venue in a warm place told us they can’t fix a room rate as variables such as the cost of air conditioning are changing daily.
I have spoken with many of our members in the middle east who are being severely impacted by the war in Iran. There is great uncertainty among members about how long this will go on and what the impact is likely to be on mobility patterns in the region. I want our members impacted to know we will do what we can to support them, so please let me know what we can do.
As we lead up to the final weeks to the Malta event, we are still fully booked however as in previous years the situation can be quite fluid in the final lead up so if you did not get a place please don’t lose hope! Contact Kirsty to be added to the Waitlist and she will do her very best to accommodate you. At this stage we have managed to accommodate everyone who was waitlisted mainly thanks to the flexibility of the Malta Hilton!
In the meantime from myself, the team and the EG, we are all really looking forward to welcoming you to Malta.
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