Along with key meetings industry stake holders we are preparing a strategy for development of the meetings industry in Ljubljana till 2020, which will clearly demonstrate the future of Ljubljana meetings industry and how it should be organized to be successful, inventive and innovative.
It is one of the first bold and clear city development plans in the area of SE Europe, which attracted the entire meetings industry into the decision process.
When asking about the future of congress Ljubljana one must also ask about the current and past state.
If we consider the key development and growth indicators we can assess that Ljubljana’s development has been stagnant in the last decade especially due to a fast growth of competitive destinations and poor destination cooperation. Everyone including the largest actors agree with this statement. Short term interests usually prevail – their nature and their multiplicative effects show they have no place in the meetings industry mind set.
The meetings industry of Ljubljana was spared the plundering logic, which contributed greatly to the current economic crisis. Our industry, mostly marginalized, was pretty autonomous throughout the decade, yet somewhat closed and mostly concentrated on finding own development potential. Corporate management quality was questionable especially in public companies of the Slovenian meetings industry which used to represent the driving force of development. At the same time there was no development aid truly aimed at the meetings industry. Quite the opposite – existing institutions got new competition with governmentally funded Brdo Congress Centre. All of the above, mostly the extraordinary proactivity of competitive destination turned out to be the weaknesses of Ljubljana’s meetings industry.
It is getting clearer and clearer it is time for new congress chapters in Ljubljana. I’m glad lately all of the key stake holders wishing for a faster and bolder progress came to similar cohesive conclusions. Competitive destinations develop so quickly and aggressively the consequences of our inactivity are unimaginable.
New congress architecture will try to manage the relationship to fundamental meetings industry values, which have never been clearly and consensually written down. These are among other the care for the environment, encouraging social responsibility, human resources management and development, originality, partner and buyer-orientation and respect and trust among stake holder in the meetings industry market. Only this value based architecture will enable our differentiation from the competition. It will be based on development and growth projects with clear and measurable goals. The role of all us stake holders is to implement these projects.
We are connected by the diversity of our partners and buyers with different experience, knowledge and skills. The carriers of the development are individuals and companies from our industry. That is why the editorial board of Kongres magazine will continue to analyze, monitor and comment on important events shaping the future of the entire meetings industry.
Gorazd Čad
