More than 70 TIC managers and staff from 37 leading European Cities met on October 16-17 in Luxembourg for the first TIC Expert Meeting to develop their knowledge and share best practices on Tourist Information Centres.
The TIC Expert Meeting is an initiative of European Cities Marketing, an association that improves the competitiveness of cities through a collaborative approach to marketing and insight based on benchmarking performance.
Luxembourg, one of European Cities Marketing’s oldest members, welcomed the brand new event TIC Expert Meeting. All seats available were booked in a record time, thus showing the increasing interest to discuss and measure experience related to CTO management & marketing.
Synne Myhre, chairperson of the TIC Knowledge Group and Director Tourist Information at VisitOSLO, explained: “The purpose of this yearly event is to create a network of experts working in the field of TIC to improve competitiveness of our cities. We aim to increase the competence, expertise and motivation of our TIC teams through exchanging best practices, experience and know-how, which are very practical and daily issues.”
The speakers included Teo Haren from interesting.org, who spoke about "Hospitality, service, creativity and fun"; Peer H Kristensen, Director at VisitAarhus, presented best practice on "Going Virtual" and Julie Cochrane, Manager at Visit Belfast Welcome Centre, shared her experience on "Opening a new TIC". All these interventions were followed by Q&A and round table discussions on the subjects addressed.
“The level of success of this first TIC expert meeting was even higher than what we expected! Participants were highly committed and willing to share knowledge, experiences and unique insight of success in their city. The atmosphere was warm and friendly, participants went back with at least one new idea to improve their daily work. We are really looking forward to next year’s edition” added Sabine Dubreuil, member of the TIC Knowledge Group, seminar chair of the TIC Expert Meeting and Manager at Stockholm Visitor Center.
During the meeting, the date and place of the next edition of the TIC Expert Meeting was revealed: it will be held in Amsterdam on October 8-9, 2015.
