European Cities Marketing – Spring Meeting in Gdansk, Poland

The European Cities Marketing spring meeting was held in Gdansk, Poland from February 22-24^th on the topic “Strategizing the DMO (Destination Management Organization) of the future”. Approximately 200 attendees from various European cities were in attendance to both present their work and share knowledge with peers from across Europe.

Keynote speakers Franck Cuypers and Dr. Roger Carter discussed the future of DMOs and how they can redefine their roles and reengineer themselves in a disruptive market place, and Chris Fair gave a keynote on how DMOs need to turn into DMMOs (Destination Management and Marketing Organizations) in order to keep up with tourism trends. During the three day meeting, a variety of workshops such as ‘Digital Transformations in Tourism Industry’ and interesting talks ranging from countryside conventions to the future of city branding kept participants engaged.

MODUL University was represented by Dr. Karl Wöber, Dr. Irem Önder, and Dr. Lidija Lalicic. Dr. Önder presented the first results of the European Cities Benchmarking Report, and Dr. Wöber and Dr. Lalicic presented the ‘meetings statistics’ data entry section on TourMIS, which will be the data entry point for the European Cities Marketing “ECM Meetings and Statistics Report”.

The meeting dinner, which was held in the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, represents the civic success and Solidarity Movement in Poland. Lech Walesa, former president of Poland (1990-1995), Nobel Peace Prize winner (1983), and one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement gave a speech during the dinner. “It was a great experience to meet the person who started this movement in person and being at the same museum where you can see the historical facts about it,” says Dr. Önder.

The next ECM meeting will be from May 31- June 3, 2017 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Picture: Dr. Irem Önder, former President of Poland Lech Walesa, Dr. Lidija Lalicic