Stakeholders
Business events in a city are never organised by one party. City marketing organisations win and promote events. DMCs deliver them on location. Around them sits a network of governments, suppliers, clients, associations and residents. This tab shows who the most important stakeholders are, what they do, and where they work.
Three key takeaways
Success depends on cooperation
Neither city marketing organisations nor DMCs can deliver an event alone. They rely on suppliers, partners and the local network.
The municipality is the centre
For public city marketing organisations it is funder, client and rule-setter at the same time.
The network is changing
Residents are moving from the sidelines to the centre. International entry points (trade shows, associations, global groups) matter more than ever before.
Who makes a business event happen in a destination?
Summary of it all
The stakeholder network of city marketing organisations and DMCs is built around the municipality, which acts as funder, client and rule-setter for public organisations. Both the literature and our interviews show that no party can deliver an event alone: success depends on cooperation with suppliers, partners and the local network, and DMCs depend in the same way on their supplier network. The interviews add that international business reaches a destination through specific doors, such as trade shows, associations and global groups, and that ambassadors and universities are a distinctive way to win conferences. The literature adds residents and NGOs, who are moving from the sidelines to the centre as audience, brand and stakeholder. In short, the destination is the stage, but it takes a whole network to run the show: the municipality leads, DMCs and suppliers deliver, and residents decide whether the event is welcome.