Everyone who has ever organized an event knows how demanding that job is. You have to pay attention to details because, during the preparation, things might not always go according to plan. At the recently held MICE conference MEETEX 2024, we found out what is important when organising events. We met with Dr. Rob Davidson , the managing director of a MICE Knowledge, one of the 10 most influential educators in the world of business events. At a time when everyone is talking about artificial intelligence, we talked to Dr. Rob Davidson about the importance of emotional intelligence. We were also interested in the trends in the meetings industry, since it is an important segment of tourism and the economy in general.
Tell us a bit about your work and the importance of emotional intelligence
MICE Knowledge specialises in education, training, and consultancy for the business events industry. It is a great pleasure to be invited to meetings to share my research with the participants every year. The theme of my presentation here was emotional intelligence, which is extremely important for anyone working in the events industry. Emotional intelligence, its aspects like empathy, understanding other people’s emotions, controlling your own emotions, is very important. It also includes actively listening to clients, your team and yourself, your own body when your body feels stressed. Recognising that is very important. Stress is a very big problem in our industry. It doesn’t look stressful because we look as if we’re having a great time. Events organisers always have a smile on their faces. But so many things can go wrong. The participants can get food poisoning, the speakers don’t turn up, or there’s a strike of the transport.
Dr. Rob Davidson is the author of 8 books on the topic of MICE industry.
I saw some interesting research recently which said that of all the professions in the world, the military was the most stressful, but events planning was the third most stressful profession in the world. There are so many things you need to control. But many still want to come and work in this wonderful industry because they love people. And it’s a perfect industry for people with a high level of emotional intelligence.
Everyone at the moment is speaking about artificial intelligence and, of course, that is important too. But my research shows that, if you have a high level of emotional intelligence – empathy, sympathy, understanding, self control, then you will succeed in events industry and you will enjoy it. Most of us working in events, we could make more money in another profession but we stay in events management. It’s because we love it. We love the people we work with and we love the feeling of a successful conference. That gives us a feeling that money cannot buy.
You are a guest speaker at MEETEX 2024. What are your thoughts about MICE in Croatia and the importance of events like MEETEX?
MEETEX is a very exciting event for Croatia. It’s a kind of event that many countries in Europe and beyond Europe would love to have. It’s an event where the meetings industry of Croatia – meaning hotels, transport companies, conference centres – those people are meeting potential clients. MEETEX organisers bring conference organisers from all over Europe to Zagreb, Croatia, for a few days. Here, they can meet face-to-face with hotels and other Croatian venues. The objective is to persuade foreign meeting planners to choose Croatia as the place where they hold their conferences, meetings and teambuilding events. For the country of Croatia, it’s a wonderful advertisement on what meeting planners can do in your country.
The advantage for Croatian hotels for example, if the meetings industry is reinforced and grows, is that more of them could open in the winter. I know, in this country, you have fantastic hotels, you have a lot of coastline but too many of those hotels close in the winter when the tourists aren’t here. But meetings and teambuilding events are things which happen every month of the year.
By building up their meetings industry those hotels can keep staff, continue operating and perhaps move to an all year round operation. So, it is interesting for Croatia. I really admire the organisers of MEETEX for doing this for six years, getting bigger every year and more successful. What we see is that more meeting planners are choosing Croatia because there’s a lot of competition. Every country in Europe would love to be the place where meetings and conferences are held, but Croatia is much more successful than its neighbours for example and part of the explanation for that success is MEETEX.
What are your thoughts about trends in future for MICE industry?
It is an interesting industry to work in because it’s changing all the time. It changes because of technology, because of the society, social changes, economic changes, the world is changing all the time and events need to change as well. So when we look at current trends one very strong one is sustainability. Meeting planners are looking more and more for sustainable events. The food that we eat at the conference, is it grown locally, local wines, local cheese and meat. Of course there Croatia has a huge advantage because you have wonderful food and wines here.
So meeting planners will begin to ask questions like: where does the food come from, are we helping local farmers with our event by buying their produce their vegetables and so on. That’s sustainability. Reducing pollution for example, using less paper at conferences. So having an app on your phone for the conference, not a lot of paper, that’s more suitable, recycling…When meeting planners look at hotels and venues for their conferences, they’re asking themselves ‘okay is the hotel using energy conservation, energy saving, are they using recycling?’ All of this is important and young people in particular care more about the environment and notice things like that. ‘How sustainable is this conference?’ That’s a very strong truth I think it’s probably the strongest one.
For the past 15 years, Dr. Rob Davidson has developed courses in MICE management. He held those courses at many universities in the UK and overseas. Dr. Rob Davidson is also a long time professor at the University of Greenwich.
In addition to sustainability, what other trends do you find important for meetings industry?
Technology, using more technology. I mentioned conference apps. They are very popular. There is an app for Meetex for example. By using audio visual technology you can make the experience better for the participants. One example is using online registration. Technology is our friend but it’s also a potential enemy because, after the pandemic when everything was online, many companies are saying to themselves: ‘we managed during the pandemic without organising conferences face-to-face. Why don’t we just continue with Zoom, with online classes?’ But you know, in the events industry, we understand the importance of face-to-face events. Technology is great but it cannot replace human beings and human contact. We know that one reason why people come to conferences is for the networking and it’s really almost impossible to network online successfully.
What do you like about networking face to face?
I love the networking at conferences that happens during the coffee breaks and the lunch breaks and in the bar in the evening. You never know who you’re going to meet and that’s a large part of the value of face-to-face conferences. Those surprises, those unexpected meetings that you have with people and you discover that they are interested in the same kind of research as you or they are potential employees for the future potential employers for the future. This is great, this is face-to-face networking and honestly technology cannot replace it.
How do you feel about Croatia? Are you enjoying your stay in Croatia?
I’m a big fan of Croatia. I’ve been coming to Croatia for many years and I’ve travelled to most of your cities and the coastline. I love the food, the wines, but I think Croatia has something which no other country in the world has and that is Croatians. And perhaps you don’t realise it but actually it’s your best quality. I always notice when I come here the warmth, the welcome of the people working in hotels, working in transport, smiles on their faces.
That’s why I love the country so much because of the people that you meet – receptionists, waiters. I’m in the LePremier Boutique Hotel in Zagreb they’re wonderful – the staff are out of this world. They’re just so friendly and efficient but with a smile on their faces. It’s a warm welcome in the whole country and that’s something that is really valuable for Croatia and I will continue to come here as long as I can.
It was a pleasure meeting Dr. Rob Davidson at MEETEX 2024. You can find out more about the work of Dr. Rob Davidson here.
Interview: Jasminka Đaković
Photos: Ivan Banić for MEETEX. All rights reserved.