How SKKP supported and enabled its members to implement changes in their strategies during the Codiv-19 crisis by providing them with the latest international updates and trends in the industry, in the local language and raised their profile in the process.
How SKKP supported and enabled its members to implement changes in their strategies during the Codiv-19 crisis by providing them with the latest international updates and trends in the industry, in the local language and raised their profile in the process.
Canva - to produce the graphics accompanying the articles
Introduction
SKKP Polish Conference & Congress Association is the oldest meetings industry association in Poland, celebrating 22 years anniversary in 2020, gathering the most professional and influential people from Polish MICE industry.
One of the key projects conducted by the SKKP is the SKKP Academy. It is an educational program, which debuted on the Polish National Education Day October 14, 2019. The experts and lectures of the SKKP Academy are Anna Górska and Anna Nowakowska, who have been associated with the meetings industry for many years.
Discovery
At the outbreak of the crisis associated with COVID-19, there was a sudden need for knowledge transfer and access to proven know-how from international organizations regarding ways to deal with this unique situation. Reliable and checked information is necessary to make right decisions. This need also applies to the world of congresses and conferences, hence the impulse to create an idea for providing verified information from the world to the industry in Poland in the form of articles under the common title Congresses and Conferences contra COVID-19.
The information is crucial to take the right decisions and to create a recovery plans. The project NEWS from the WORLD – SKKP Academy is the unique initiative aiming to help the association members to deal with an unexpected crisis. SKKP members are the meetings industry companies including Professional Conference Organizers (PCOs), Congress Centers and hotels, who were among the businesses hit by COVID-19.
Objectives
One of the SKKP strategic goals is to raise knowledge and skills of the Polish industry in order to develop and maintain professional conference services in Poland. The project helps to achieve this goal by providing the Polish industry with inspiration, to encourage them to implement creative solutions in their businesses.
Timeline
15 March - 13 May 2020 - Published 19 articles on social media
15 March - 13 May 2020 - 6 Facebook Challenges - Stay home and show us what you do while locked up
10 May - Webinar - Good practices in the field of communication and promotion
13 May – till now - Project is being continued, new articles appear once a week
29 May - A new logo was created for the project
Activities
The project provides the SKKP members with all the relevant information about the pandemic, allowing them to react quickly and efficiently to implement changes in their strategies. It is showing how the world is reacting on this unusual and unexpected situation.
Concrete examples how the entrepreneurs deal with the COVID-19 to decrease its negative impact is a guidance for the Polish companies in what direction they should go. In the series of articles from the News from the World - SKKP Academy, important aspects of the meetings industry from the international market are raised. These are examples of good practices, researches, new trends and innovative projects, case studies, etc. The authors of all articles are Anna Górska and Katarzyna Sadowska – Cioch, both AAE members.
1. Articles
We write new articles twice a week, which are published every Tuesday and Thursday on the SKKP website, SKKP Facebook page and on our own personal Facebook pages. We also write the same articles on LinkedIn.
On every Monday there is a summary of 5 Top Good News from last week on the SKKP profile on Facebook. In addition, short news appear there on other days.
The new articles appear also on the two major Polish meetings industry media platforms: MeetingPlanner.pl and ThinkMICE which both include them in their newsletters as well as websites.
We published a total of 19 articles between 15 March - 13 May:
Let’s get ‘Phys-gital” – an innovative ways of conducting meetings now
Dream Now, Travel Later – showing examples of promotional videos produced during pandemic
An ECM Guide for Sustainable Recovery
SKKP website
Does virtual meetings cannibalize F2F meetings
What are the biggest Associations challenges now
Don’t cancel, postpone
Success case – OSC 2020
Good practices guides
Coronavirus Event Planning Guide
DMO – can crisis be an opportunity?
When will F2F meetings return
Ideas from the world – how the others deal with the crisis
The latest UNWTO report - 90% of global destinations closed their borders to tourists. What's next ?
UNWTO has set up the Global Crisis Committee on Tourism and announces “call to action”
Bill Gates - will the digital resistance certificate allow us to travel safely?
WHO – World Health Organization publishes coronavirus event-planning guide
Webinars will not save the meetings industry
Tourist corridors - an idea of EU countries for reviving tourism during the holiday season
How Amsterdam builds its competitive advantage with the help of a doughnut
2. Facebook Challenges
On weekends we post “challenges” connected to the news like “Stay home” and show us what you do while locked up. There were 6 “challenges” in total.
3. Video “Poland will wait”
Inspired by the Frankfurt short promotional video “From Frankfurt with love” we produced our own one, branded with the SKKP Academy “Poland will wait” which is available on the SKKP website.
4. Webinar
Webinar - screengrab
As a summary of our NEWS from the World project we organized a live webinar on the 10th of May 2020 where Anna Górska presented the good practices in the field of communication and promotion.
We plan to continue the project after the CODVID-19 crisis and keep on writing articles relevant for the Polish meetings industry based on the information from the international media.
We didn’t outsource any activities.
We wrote the articles ourselves.
We also did graphics ourselves using Canva for free. We produces a separate graphic to accompany each article and Monday Top 5 News.
The promotional video was made by the member of the SKKP Board.
Innovation
News from the world - the SKKP Academy is the first continuous analysis of international trends of this type in Poland. There is information on the market available about legislative changes in other governments and the regulations introduced there. News from the World cover a completely different sector and follows specific examples of strategies that can inspire the introduction of creative solutions in our companies.
A very simple idea of the project – to help Polish industry by giving them knowledge for free ,following the trend of “Helping is the new Selling”
Promotion of the project using our personal brands. We promote it with our own names, pictures of ourselves and on our personal social media pages.
The project is also characterized by regularity and openness to changes. The cycle began with articles appearing daily, now they appear twice a week and Monday's 5 Good News has been added, which are a summary of the most important news from the previous week.
The authors analyze international sources daily and provide condensed knowledge about the changes that are taking place in our eyes in the area of conferences and congresses. Changes, some of which will stay with us permanently and others will evaluate, hence the need to monitor them on an ongoing basis.
Challenges
Finding time to do research
Achievements
In the two months period between 14 March - 10 May, we received 59,32% more new users compared to 16 January - 13 March the same year; and 40,20% more site views.
We received the following media coverage:
MeetingPlanner posts on web
We reached a large number of people through Think MICE web site channel (26815 average number of visits per month) and through their newsletter (4900 subscribers). The News from the World appeared in 6 Think Mice newsletters. The cost of one sponsored article is ca 400 EURO.
Every MeetingPlanner.pl newsletter reaches over 6000 subscribers. Our articles appeared in 8 of them. The cost of one sponsored article is ca 500 EURO.
The webinar on the 10th of May reached 7252 recipients.
The site Poland followed our lead and introduced their own project “SITE Insentivist News” every week posting News from the world on their Facebook page.
Our articles are also shared on the social media by the others, for example Krakow Convention Bureau and occasionally included in the printed magazine MICE Poland.
Feedback & Testimonials
“I would like to express my gratitude for your commitment and professionalism in series of press articles written by Anna Górska and Katarzyna Cioch.
The idea of articles was created in the right time, directly after COVID-19 lockdown happened in Poland. I follow up on them twice per week and I’m really eager to get more news from all over the world.
The articles touch current problems the MICE industry is facing worldwide. They are very interesting and inspiring. Issues raised by them are very up to date.
Nowadays, in very difficult times for MICE & hotel Industry, we can get updated information from around the globe. Most of the news are heartwarming, but not only. For the professional reader, they present the most actual information from other countries, how to deal with MICE industry during pandemic and how to cooperate in business.
We found articles very inspiring and we do hope that the strategy that you have created will be supportive for our company, will let us manage the venue in a more competitive and effective way.
Articles support and promote good business practices (change the date, do not cancel your event), which are very important in tourism industry, now even more than ever.
My conclusion is, that this initiative is worth your attention and helping us all to go through this together, leaving us stronger and closer than we were before!”
Monika Nahirny, New Business Development Director, Nosalowy Dwór Resort & Spa, Member of SKKP & MPI
Wider impact
Our goal was to provide the Polish MICE industry with the reliable information from the international resources in order to help them overcome the COVID-19 crisis. We achieved much more than that.
The project significantly raised the profile of the SKKP and the Academy itself.
We strengthened our brand as the experts on the Polish market
We gained a positive image as a reliable partner
Thanks to the large range in the social media, SKKP Academy, the educational program which gives the Association a significant additional income became promoted and well known in Poland.
We experienced a significant raise in the number of our website visitors as well as the Facebook page.
The project has great ROI – small investment (only our personal time, no money invested) and great media coverage
