Great, fun, challenging, inspiring, dynamic and full of opportunities…….

Q: How would you describe your job?
Great, fun, challenging, inspiring, dynamic and full of opportunities……. I have been building up and further develop Meet in Reykjavik the national Icelandic CVB from its start in early 2012. Where my focus areas are to develop a sound long term, vision, strategy and stable operation.

Q: What advice would you offer to all soon to be working in marketing in the meetings industry?
Enjoy it first and foremost as it is a very interesting industry that offers a pier crowd of people that are in general very likable, sophisticated and with an endless drive and aspiration that makes it such an enjoyable industry to work in.

Q: Hot to develop talent and how to help people grow to the next level?
Build a broad team of people, make sure all of them are full of drive and aspiration, challenge them and always take time to give constructive feedback. Let them know from the get-go that their growth is your success as motivated growing talent are the most efficient driver of success.

Q: What are you most excited about at the moment?
How we can ensure that the explosive growth of interest for Iceland after the European football championship (underdog story that everyone likes….) can be channeled into further success for the MICE market and not just leisure market.

Q: Your advice/suggestion for turning a boring event into a memorable one?
Be “disruptive“ in the flow to certain extent to challenge people and move away from „what we always do and always expect“ without ruin the flow and end up just being silly. By being “disruptive“ I mean disrupt the NORMAL flow and how you do things and be a bit hip and cool to excite people (also them that just want to listen and to be left alone to their smartphone). Bit of a challenge but a good balance in this area is highly rewarding.

Q: What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Hanging upside down for 7-10 minutes in the morning and swimming in the cold Atlantic all year.

Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Fundamentally enjoying what I do.

Q: What kind of knowledge will participants of Conventa Crossover gain from listening to your lecture?
Better understanding „challenges in marketing a nature destination on the MICE market” and the potential reward.

Q: What do you expect from Conventa Crossover?
Fresh structure, somewhat disrupted format and interesting content delivered in more shorter sessions rather than lengthy lectures.

Thorsteinn Örn is the Managing Director of Meet in Reykjavík.
He has vast experience and knowledge as a senior manager within the tourism and airline industry as well as years of experience as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in Scandinavia and Singapore. He holds a M.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark.

Join meeting planners, meeting providers, congress destinations and professionals working in tourism and marketing at Conventa Crossover conference, international conference dedicated to the future of MICE and travel marketing.

When & where: 29 – 30 August 2016 in Hotel Lev, Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

“We are absolutely delighted that so many speakers have announced their presence already at this stage, and we know that there are many more to come,” says Conventa Crossover founder Gorazd Čad