BestCities have reached a monumental 20th anniversary milestone off the back of the 2019 Copenhagen Global Forum success, as Madrid takes the baton for the year ahead.
The Alliance is celebrating 20 years of bringing experience and knowledge to the meetings industry and creating connections and legacy with their clients and destination collective across the last two decades.
A new umbrella tag-line for the Alliance has also been unveiled to mark the new decade: ‘Today’s Cities Shaping Tomorrow’s World.’ The new mantra stems from the organisation’s dedication to harnessing the power of collaboration and community to create positive impact through business events.
Lesley Williams, Managing Director of BestCities, said: “Meetings may have changed significantly over the last 20 years – but I believe that their key purpose will never change – to share knowledge and cultivate purposeful relationships. How we do it may evolve, but the power of human-to-human interaction is the cornerstone of all meetings.
“With this incredible milestone for the alliance, we’re looking ahead to the challenges and opportunities presented in next 20 years, and how we, as an Alliance, and the industry will navigate them. We thank those who have contributed to the collective of knowledge and experience that’s helped shaped everything we do at BestCities so far, and look forward to what’s to come.”
The anniversary celebration follows a hugely successful Copenhagen Global Forum, which saw Copenhagen Convention Bureau and BestCities delve into the theme of Exploring the Congress of the Future – Fortifying Impact.
Led by a range of internationally respected consultants and industry leaders, the programme combined engaging education sessions with lively interactive workshops analysing into the future of meetings, featuring the Danish Design Centre and futurists from Public Futures. The event also saw Copenhagen launch a first-of-its-kind legacy lab, which introduced terminology on key concepts including outreach, legacy and impact – a dialogue on evaluating global best practises in the meetings industry.
18 international association executives attended the Global Forum, including representatives from the International Conference on Thinking, International Union of Architects and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Speaking about their experience at the Global Forum, Ebba Lund, CEO of International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation, said: “The BestCities Global Forum helps us as associations look at the strategic layers of meeting planning, consider the future of conferences, as well as continuously improve for our members.
“It allows us to think about the industry on a broader scale, to help keep up to date on the latest trends on what’s happening in our field.”
The prestigious annual event has taken place at partner cities Dubai, Tokyo, Bogotá and most recently Copenhagen, over the last four years. The BestCities Global Forum 2020 will take place in Madrid, Spain, in November 20-23. Themed Developing Legacy Together, it is open to senior association executives (or AMC on behalf of associations) considering hosting International Business Events that rotate globally, relevant to any of the BestCities Global Alliance partner cities: Berlin, Bogotá, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Dubai, Houston, Madrid, Melbourne, Singapore, Tokyo and Vancouver.