Professional conference organiser

Last updated

A professional conference organiser, professional congress organiser (PCO) or conference company is a company which specialises in the organisation and management of congresses, conferences, seminars and similar events.

Contents

Role

PCOs can typically work as consultants for academic and professional associations. They usually provide full service management for conferences including conference design, abstract management software, program development, registration, site and venue selection and booking, audiovisuals, IT support, logistics, leisure management, marketing, printing and web services, sourcing speakers, funding, sponsorship and exhibitor sales, financial management and budget control. [1]

Other companies offer related services including travel agents and public relations companies. They tend to focus on limited areas such as destination management.

Size of market sector

Surveys of UK conference venues have found that a third of conference bookings were made by PCOs or venue-finding agencies. [2] [3] [4] In 2006 UK-based conferences generated £7.6 billion in direct sales giving PCOs a central role in some £2.5 billion of revenue generation. The UK is ranked second behind the US for global market share of conferences. Thus, although there is no one source of global statistics for the conference market it appears that PCOs play a central role in several billion dollars' worth of revenue generation worldwide.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Investment banking</span> Type of financial services company

Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that engages in providing advisory-based services on financial transactions for clients, such as institutional investors, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of debt or equity securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, FICC services or research. Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket, Middle Market, and boutique market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumer electronics</span> Electronic products for everyday use

Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. These products are usually referred to as black goods due to many products being housed in black or dark casings. This term is used to distinguish them from "white goods" which are meant for housekeeping tasks, such as washing machines and refrigerators, although nowadays, these would be considered black goods, some of these being connected to the Internet. In British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers. In the 2010s, this distinction is absent in large big box consumer electronics stores, which sell entertainment, communication and home office devices, light fixtures and appliances, including the bathroom type.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video game industry</span> Economic sector involved with the development, marketing and sales of video games

The video game industry is the tertiary and quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the development, marketing, distribution, monetization and consumer feedback of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Financial services</span> Economic service provided by the finance industry

Financial services are economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of service sector activities, especially as concerns financial management and consumer finance.

The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconductor devices became a viable business. The industry's annual semiconductor sales revenue has since grown to over $481 billion, as of 2018.

A professional employer organisation (PEO) is an outsourcing firm that provides services to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Typically, the PEO offering may include human resource consulting, safety and risk mitigation services, payroll processing, employer payroll tax filing, workers' compensation insurance, health benefits, employers' practice and liability insurance (EPLI), retirement vehicles, regulatory compliance assistance, workforce management technology, and training and development. The PEO enters into a contractual co-employment agreement with its clientele. Through co-employment, the PEO becomes the employer of record (EoR) for tax purposes through filing payroll taxes under its own tax identification numbers. As the legal employer, the PEO is responsible for withholding proper taxes, paying unemployment insurance taxes and providing workers’ compensation coverage.

Capgemini Engineering is a global innovation and engineering consulting firm founded in 1982 in France by Alexis Kniazeff and Hubert Martigny.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music industry</span> Companies and individuals that create and sell music

The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Event management</span> Purposeful and systematic planning of public events

Event management is the application of project management to the creation and development of small and/or large-scale personal or corporate events such as festivals, conferences, ceremonies, weddings, formal parties, concerts, or conventions. It involves studying the brand, identifying its target audience, devising the event concept, and coordinating the technical aspects before actually launching the event.

Global Gaming Expo (G2E) is a gambling industry trade show presented by the American Gaming Association (AGA) and organized by Reed Exhibitions. The flagship G2E convention debuted in 2001 and is held each fall in Las Vegas, Nevada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amadeus IT Group</span> Spanish travel technology company

Amadeus IT Group, S.A. is a major Spanish multinational technology company that provides software solutions for the global travel and tourism industry. It is the world's leading provider of travel technology that focus on developing software for airlines, hotels, travel agencies, and other travel-related businesses to enhance their operations and customer experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cairns Convention Centre</span> Convention center in Carins, Australia

The Cairns Convention Centre is a convention and entertainment centre in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. The venue was selected the World's Best Congress Centre in 2004 and 2014.

Revenue management is the application of disciplined analytics that predict consumer behaviour at the micro-market levels and optimize product availability, leveraging price elasticity to maximize revenue growth and thereby, profit. The primary aim of revenue management is selling the right product to the right customer at the right time for the right price and with the right pack. The essence of this discipline is in understanding customers' perception of product value and accurately aligning product prices, placement and availability with each customer segment.

The Events Industry Council (formerly known as the Convention Industry Council (CIC)) is a non-profit federation of more than 30 U.S. and international organizations involved in the meetings, conventions and exhibitions industry. The Events Industry Council's member organizations represent more than 103,500 individuals and 19,300 firms or properties across all sectors of the industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Brewery Convention</span>

The European Brewery Convention (EBC) is an organisation representing the technical and scientific interests of the brewing sector in Europe. The EBC defines itself as the scientific and technological arm of The Brewers of Europe. Among brewers, EBC is perhaps best known for the EBC units measuring beer and wort colour, as well as EBC units for quantifying turbidity in beer. Equally, the EBC congress is recognised globally as a significant meeting event for the world's brewing, malting and beer fermentation scientists and technologists, taking place every two years.

The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) was founded in 1963 by a group of travel agents to exchange information on international congresses and conventions.

Cvent Holding Corp. is a Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company that provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for meetings, events, and hospitality management. Their web-based platform caters to in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, offering functionalities like online registration, venue selection, event management tools, and attendee engagement features. Cvent also provides software for hotels and venues to manage group bookings, including corporate travel, and source new group business. Previously a public company, Cvent was acquired by investment firm Blackstone Inc. for $4.6 billion in June 2023.

The meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibitions (MICE) industry in Thailand is one of the major branches of tourism in Thailand, contributing an estimated 0.58 percent to Thailand's GDP in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agricultural machinery industry</span> Subsector of the industry

The agricultural machinery industry or agricultural engineering industry is the part of the industry, that produces and maintain tractors, agricultural machinery and agricultural implements used in farming or other agriculture. This branch is considered to be part of the machinery industry.

Lanyon Solutions, Inc. was a privately owned, software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that provided cloud-based software to manage meetings, events and travel. Lanyon's software supported a range of clients including corporations, hotels, associations, tradeshows, convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs), and intermediaries in the meetings, events and travel space. It was merged into Cvent in 2017.

References