When companies have to economise, the meetings account is not always the right place to cut down. The most important thing is to make sure that all parties gain optimal benefits from the time and money spent.

”No more boring meetings!” That is the message Denmark is now spreading over the meetings world. In collaboration with hotels and conference centres all over the country, VisitDenmark is launching a wide range of newly-developed concepts for more efficient and involving meetings and conferences, jointly branded “Meetovation”. The concepts were presented at the European conference of Meeting Professionals International (MPI) in Turin, Italy on 1-3 March 2009.

The Meetovation meeting concepts comply with today’s demands, especially in this time of crisis, that meeting organisers have to make sure to gain optimal benefits from all the time and large amounts of money invested in arranging conferences, seminars, training courses, etc.

Ideas and tools to obtain a high degree of participant involvement, combined with creative use of the physical setting and facilities, are some of the elements to be found in all the new concepts for more valuable meetings. The Meetovation concepts also highlight green and responsible operation. Furthermore, the Meetovation meetings obtain an extra dimension by adding a relevant local “flavour”.

Sleeping meeting participants is bad business
"A boring meeting is bound to be a bad meeting", says Lars Blicher-Hansen, Project Manager - Business Events at VisitDenmark's Head Office in Copenhagen.

“It is a great relief to both participant and organiser to move away from the endless one-way communication and traditional seating arrangements that prevent you from seeing anything but the back of the head of the person sitting in front of you. We want to activate the sum of the knowledge and experience of the participants,” Lars Blicher-Hansen continues, emphasising that it can never be good business to spend time and money on an assembly of people who are half asleep.

The starting point of all Meetovation concepts is to establish the objective of the meeting. Based upon this, the meeting organiser can select the specific Meetovation concept whose format and flow support the objective of the meeting in the best possible way. Without, of course, interfering with the content of the meeting, the “Meetovator” at the venue will also help the client arrange an evaluation of the outcome of the meeting and measure the “Return on meeting investment”.

International marketing
VisitDenmark, the Official Tourism Organisation of Denmark, is the creator of Meetovation, in collaboration with experts from congress agencies in Aarhus, Aalborg and Southern Denmark, professional facilitators, management consultants and meeting organisers as well as a number of Danish conference centres, hotels and cultural institutions, including unconventional conference venues such as the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, the Skagen Museum and Billund Airport. The project is subsidised by the Ministry of Economics and Business Affairs. At the moment, 26 new meeting concepts are to be found on the website www.meetovation.com. Additional concepts will be developed during the months to come.

In addition to Turin, Meetovation was also introduced last at this year's International Confex in London, and for the Danish meetings market, at the big annual marketplace “The Meetings Day” in Copenhagen.