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In love with Berlin

01.03.2006

CIM 3/2006 Berlin

At Meeting Place Berlin many planners fell in love with the capital. And that’s paying dividends now.

Successful. "The RFP figure for 2005 to 2011 is great and worth a total of 1.6 million euros," says a happy Heike Mahmoud. And all that's only "due to Meeting Place Berlin in July 2005." 1.6 million euros for the capital without indirect yields and follow-up contracts.The head of Berlin Convention Office (BCO) and co-initiator of the first Berlin Meeting Place can rightly be proud, having lured 208 planners from 15 countries, including Italy, the UK, USA and Canada to the three-and-a-half-day event in Berlin. This success was not unexpected, as many planners were already impressed during the event. "Berlin is trendy, the hottest city," says Jeanne Catala, Vitalis Events Geneva, and Wanda Savonazzi, CpA Rome: "When you stay in Berlin, you feel that you're staying in Europe." Pablo Moreno of Spain Events Madrid thinks "Berlin is the perfect place for big events" and Canadian Wayland Amy, Optimum Meetings & Incentives Montreal will promote the German capital back home: "l found the Conference most enlightening and l have become an ambassador for Berlin."
Wooing and enthralling ambassadors was the aim of the meeting. "The city is infused with an atmosphere of change. We want you to get to know Berlin from its best side!" said governing mayor Klaus Wowereit at the opening.
Planners had sufficient opportunity to do so: On Meet Facilities Day, Meet Berlin Day or during the talk-filled Meet Professionals Day at Berlin Congress Centrum (bcc) on Alexanderplatz. 15 appointments of 15 minutes each were scheduled beforehand, five of them assigned. "The day was very constructive," said a content Annemarie Ringelmann of the Association of German Engineers. "Even if the concept was rather unconventional." Here buyers sat in "their" cabins, while suppliers came to meet them. The facilities tour featured convention centres and hotels: The ICC, axica at Brandenburg Gate, Estrel Hotel, the InterContinental and the new Maritim Hotel. Meet Berlin Day also held some surprises. Having just completed a comfortable coach tour, the bewildered guests were hustled into Trabis and even had to take over at the wheel for a Trabi safari. "That's really funny," as Vice President Meetings and Special Events of Active International New York Fred Diniz kept saying while the convoy passed through Berlin. Then the tour continued by boat on the Spree.
An Image of the culture offerings of "Fat B", as Berlin is fondly called, was provided by the social Programme: clubbing, open air classics, cuisine, and the Blue Man Group giving its only performance outside the USA in Berlin and seeing off visitors with a final drum roll until the next Meeting Place Berlin 2007. In-between, there was a shorter special edition in November, attended by 85 planners. "Both events were a great platform for marketing Berlin as a meeting metropolis. Customers talk about it and there's a lot of interest," recalls Mahmoud. "The special edition wasn't even really planned. And we only want to stage the big event every two years, i.e. the next one in 2007, and mainly invite congress agencies and organisers," says the BCO boss. "We got great feedback; and now we already have 375 potential customers who want to come to Berlin."The BCO happily concludes: "Of course there'll be a special edition in late summer."That is to say from Au¬gust 25 until the 28th, 2006!

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