Noticias del Bureau Julio 2006

BUENAS NOTICIAS!

Recibimos una llamada del Chairman de The Health Tourism International Chamber of Commerce (HTICC),Dr.Garis Silega, respondiendo a una carta que le enviamos hace un tiempo. Ya accedieron a celebrar en Panamá la Convención Latinoamericana de Turismo de Salud (fecha próxima por definir).

La Asociación Panameña de Prensa Turística APPTUR nos ha contactado porque les interesa pertenecer al Bureau de Convenciones. Su presidenta es la Licenciada María Victoria López y García.

Aprovechamos para hablarle del Congreso Latinoamericano de Prensa Turística y que el Buró los apoyaría en traer la próxima sede a Panamá, quedando muy entusiasmada.

TRABAJANDO CON LAS ASOCIACIONES :

Nos reunimos con el señor Alfredo Maduro, Presidente de la Fundación Nacional de Cardiología para motivarlos a solicitar la sede del International Congress on Cardiovascular Disease – ICCD. Nos prometió conversar con los médicos miembros de la Fundación.

Tenemos pendiente una reunión con la Dra. Joan Levin, Presidenta de la Fundación de Osteoporosis (FOSEMO), quien nos solicitó apoyo para el Taller Regional para miembros de las ONG de Osteoporosis de Centro América y el Caribe, a celebrarse entre el 15 y 19 de noviembre de este año en nuestro país.

También aprovechamos para motivarlos a que ofrezcan Panamá como sede del próximo Congreso Latinoamericano de Osteoporosis (IOF) para el 2008.

Tuvimos la oportunidad de conversar con la Licenciada Flor Torrijos de la Autoridad Marítima de Panamá, quien estuvo muy contenta de conocer sobre el Bureau de Convenciones pues ellos a veces rechazan congresos por no tener el tiempo para encargarse de la organización.

Estamos trabajando en la presentación de la Propuesta para ser la Sede del International Researchers Congress de ICCA, la cual debe entregar antes del 1 de agosto.

Los únicos hoteles que entregaron propuestas de acuerdo a las especificaciones estipuladas en el Bid Manual fueron el hotel Riande Continental y el Hotel Caesars Park. El Bureau de Convenciones debe preparar dos paquetes u opciones que incluyan todo el evento con el precio en que sugerimos se venda la inscripción a este congreso.

La propuesta llevará también carta de recomendación de dos socios de ICCA, la empresa Congrex Latinoamérica y el Palacio de Convenciones de Cuba. Adicionalmente carta del Presidente del Bureau de Convenciones y del Ministro de Turismo Rubén Blades.

FELICITAMOS A APATEL POR EL FORO DE TURISMO

Una vez más Apatel se lució con un Foro de altura sobre el Turismo en Panamá y los proyectos futuros.

PRÓXIMOS CONGRESOS

Secure Event Management

By Martin Sirk

Ask meeting planners what the biggest new role that has landed on their desks in the last four years, and the answer is almost inevitable: security, safety, risk management. Whatever the terminology, it is the issue of making sure that the organisation's meetings are held with as few risks as possible for the organisation itself, its sponsors, delegates, staff and other stakeholders. One senior manager with a large international association informed me that she has had to literally double the amount of work required to plan her major annual event because of this, including in-depth analysis of viable back-up venues and the holding of multiple provisional bookings. More travel, more time, more contracts, more checking, more worries…..she is not alone.

Whilst everyone knows that this is a critical issue, the availability of practical, systems-based advice has been thin on the ground, particularly for the hard-pressed meeting planner or association executive whose head is on the block if something goes wrong.

ICCA recently tried to address this gap by teaming up with two ICCA members to produce a check-list based publication called “Secure Event Management”. COPE International is a Swedish based company whose certification system for the events industry takes the widest interpretation of risk issues, from pre-planning to post-event evaluation, and from information provision to logistics best practice. Insurex Expo-sure is the leading specialist insurer for the events and hospitality industry. Between them, they have created an excellent resource which can be freely downloaded from the ICCA website:

http://www.iccaworld.com/cnt/docs/COPEbrochure.pdf

“Secure Event Management” identifies not only detailed check-lists, but also sets out some recommended strategic steps to take. Every organisation should have these set out as part of their event preparedness:

*Match your organisation's priorities against a checklist of actions, to create your own event preparedness plan.

*Create measurable targets for the results you want to achieve in safety related issues, as a first step towards a comprehensive quality assurance system.

*Identify risks early and build in a process for alerting your key players before the risk turns into a problem.

*Help your partners and suppliers to deliver optimal performance by making them aware of your safety and security requirements from the earliest procurement stage to post-event evaluation.

*Create safety work plans for each staff member, and give your directors or Board a reporting framework that keeps them informed about risk issues.

*Build a management overview of all the areas of risk and safety serviced by two-way communication channels.

*Avoid unnecessary expenditure caused by last-minute security add-ons; ensure all quotations include adequate provision for this.

*Create “what if?” scenarios to plan your response should potential risks occur.

Events are becoming ever more complex, and the security and risk issues are becoming similarly difficult to manage and understand. Issues of industrial espionage and product confidentiality link into issues such as the prevalence of phone cameras and venue waste paper disposal policy. Delegate health issues tie in with legal liability and logistics: do you know how far from the congress venue is the nearest hospital with care for heart attack victims, or how long it takes to get there during the morning rush hour?

I frequently receive requests to provide advice on “safe destinations” for meetings, and often I come across literature where the city or country makes claims that they meet this definition. In my experience, there is no such place as a “safe destination”. Who could have imagined that Madrid would be the scene of Europe's worst single terrorist attack, or that Toronto and Singapore would be regarded as deadly health risks during the SARS crisis? No, the only sensible approach for meeting planners is to assume that there will always be risks wherever they decide to hold their meetings: maybe it's a strike by the local hospitality industry, maybe a crash at the local airport, maybe something as mundane as a power cut at the congress centre. The issue is not, “where is safe”, but “are my local partners all prepared to deal with problems”!

Risk cannot be eliminated, only managed, and each association and company will take a different view on what is acceptable and what is not. The minimum that all those of us involved in the international meetings industry should do is to make themselves aware of the issues and to make sure that no-one can claim “they didn't know who was responsible” when a disaster strikes.

Gracias por su apoyo!

Cecilia