Innovations and Trends within the Contemporary Event Management Industry - Term Paper Example

With Reference To a Particular Genre of Events, Critically Assess the Most Significant Innovations and Trends within the Contemporary Event Management Industry Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Overview of Genre of Events 3 Most Significant Innovations and Trends in Conference Event Management 5 Justification of the Trends and Innovations with Examples 7 Conclusion 8 References 10 11 11 11 11 Introduction The trend of event management has increased rapidly over the last few years. The contemporary event management has a wide variety of products or events ranging from the smaller event in the community to the larger global events. Fundamentally, events can be described in simple language as the gathering of large volume of people for a specific purpose (Damm, 2010). In this essay, a specific genre of contemporary events has been taken into consideration, signifying the conference sector. Conceptually, conference usually refers to the gathering of a huge volume of people in a certain place to discuss about a certain organizational agenda. Conference is also regarded as one of the major and common forms of business events, which also require numerous components set by the organizer of the event. For bigger conferences, many of the aspects are to be required, such as registration, closing of the registration on time and above all the sponsorship (Damm, 2010). With regards to all the aforementioned subjects, this essay will describe the most significant innovations and trends currently observable in the conference event management industry, giving proper justifications and examples. Overview of Genre of Events In the simplest manner, conference can be explained as the scheduled meeting of the people, wherein a topic is discussed with the consent of a large group of people. There are several forms of conferences currently organized in the contemporary scenario of event management. The most common type of conference identified in the current trend is the business conference. The most unique feature of the conference is that the message intended to be revealed in such an event is delivered only to the people attending the event. It signifies that the message to be disclosed at the conference is intended only for the people present in the event, which are mostly kept confidential from public media. This system is usually observed in the case of business as well as political conferences wherein some major agendas for the business or the economy are attempted to be discussed. Information discussed in these events are intended to be kept confidential to the highest possible extent and therefore, security is considered as a major concern in this kind of events. As mentioned in the earlier section, a conference can be related with the contemporary event management system by conducting the conference in a step by step process. Conference is termed as a kind of a contemporary event due to the reason that it has a variety of classifications in its domain. However, emphasizing its fundamental tenets, conference can be described or verified on the basis of business goals and objectives (BusinessVibes Network International Inc, 2014). Conference is also termed as an important facet of contemporary event management industry, principally owing to the fact that in the current event management practices, conference is not only limited within the business perspectives but has also expanded its dimensions within the political and social contexts (both nationally and internationally). With the growing trend of organization conferences, both confidential and public, demands for organizers proficient in similar kind of event management has also augmented to a substantial extent. For example, in the modern arrangement of conferences, participant business organization(s) are often observed to select luxurious venues and the proper decoration style to enhance the atmosphere for the discussion and thus, contribute to the purpose of the conference along with creating a positive effect on the people attending the same. Safety and comfort of the people attending the conference is also regarded to be of great significance in organizing these events, which further increases its economic value within the contemporary event management industry. Apparently, conference is not only limited within the business perspectives in the modern day context but has also spread its classification to a large variety of products. This particular feature of conference justifies the basic reason for considering conference as one of the most vital elements of contemporary event management industry (BusinessVibes Network International Inc, 2014). Most Significant Innovations and Trends in Conference Event Management Since the last few years, several changes in the event management industry were observed to take place continually, which further shaped the MICE industry sector, referred at the collective framework for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions. While focusing on the current trends and innovations taking place within the genre of conference management, it can be asserted that the distinctions between political conferences (for example summits) and business conferences or commercial conferences have become quite apparent. However, although the demands for confidentiality and publicity remain subjective to the topic of discussion in these conferences, irrespective of their relation to the corporate sector, political context or commercial backgrounds, almost in every conference held around the world, safety and comfort of the visitors are treated to be the top priorities. Subsequently, with the compilation of these many variables in conference management, it has also been noticed that the cost of event management has risen to a large extent in the modern day scenario. Few of the latest trends that prevail in the modern day event are making use of the technology to lower the cost of events, use of modern devices during the event and above all, keeping track of the success of the event. Among all these factors, use of technology in lowering the cost of the conference can be regarded as one of the most significant trends in the event management industry (Robertson & Frew, 2013). In the current phenomenon, organizers of the event (conferences) deliver much stress on better cost efficiency owing to the fact that designing budget in a manner to allow successful and smooth conduct of the event along with assuring the desired level of investment return to the event initiators as well as to the organizers with the successful accomplishment of the determined goals. As per the current trends, conferences are generally held with an intention to gain a better profit index from the meeting or creation of strong partnership relationships, which further increases the significance of these events in the current day context. One of the most important trends in the arrangement of conference, which can also be denoted as an innovation in this particular genre of contemporary event management, is the hiring of professional and certified conference planners. Similar to that of the event planners, conference planners are the people who are hired by the organization so that a properly planned and designed conference can be held in order to gain possible outcomes from the event (Getz, 2010). As mentioned above, owing to the fact that conferences are mostly held with major business intentions or quite significant political as well as economic goals, initiators often deem it fit to hire a professional conference planner to ensure that the objectives of the conferences are partially sufficed. Traditionally, initiators of conferences aimed at organizing for the comfort and safety of the participants by hiring specialized service providers from these domains. However, in the modern trend, initiators of such events often focus on hiring professional conference planners, which not only saves their but also makes the entire event management process more cost efficient, resourceful and competitive enough to gain success. (Shone & Perry, 2004). In the recent days, it has been largely observed that conference initiators commonly aim at hiring a conference planner so that the event can be held successfully with proper use of resources. Moreover, a proficient conference planner is deemed to posses the complete knowledge of planning an event in a manner that it can definitely derive positive outcomes or returns along with making the intention of the conference successful. Due to the reason, hiring conference planners have emerged as a common trend in this particular genre of the contemporary event management industry (The Active Network, 2012). As a consequence to the rising demand for professional conference planners, the number of corporate units as conference centers has also increased in manifolds. This particular chain of operations can be further considered as a major innovation within the boundaries of the MICE industry (Ryan & Huang, 2013). Justification of the Trends and Innovations with Examples Most apparent examples of the trends and innovations observable in the conference management genre of the contemporary event management industry can be obtained with reference to the growth and development witnessed in the MICE sector of China. In the Chinese society, demand for hiring professional conference planners, primarily to gain advantages in terms of resource usefulness, cost effectiveness and time benefits, has augmented to a major extent, fueling the rise in the numbers of conference centers throughout the nation. As major trend observable within the Chinese conference industry, it is also reported that almost every large conference initiators are inclined towards forming strategic partnership professional event planner organizations or specific conference centers, who are then assigned with the task to perform the entire process of organizing conferences as per the client’s demands. China is also regarded as one of the most rapidly booming markets wherein a majority of the events are held annually. Among them, many of the national as well as the international conferences are held in China. One of the distinct features of the conferences held in the organizations of China is that it adopts advanced and integrated form of technology, which also indicates a certain type of innovation taking place currently in the conference management industry (Chinacom, 2014; Goldblatt, 2013). One of the most noteworthy examples of conferences held in China was the China International Conference on Insurance and Risk Management 2013. Certainly, the trend to hire a professional organizer and a particular conference center (i.e. the Expo Garden Hotel) was apparently observable in this event. During the entire session of the conference, visual presentation was included with much significance, which also illustrates the technology innovations on process to make the conference management process more effective and efficient (2013 China International Conference on Insurance and Risk Management, 2013). Conclusion From the above discussion based on the trends and innovations of the event management industries, it can be assessed that with the advancement of the modern age, the trends of the event organizing has also undergone significant changes. From an in-depth perspective to the selected genre of contemporary event management, i.e. conference management, these changes can be observed apparently in terms of specific trends and innovations taking place within the industry sector. For instance, unlike the traditional era, clients of the conference management industry or the initiators of conferences have shown a trend of hiring professional conference planners when organizing these events. Such a strategic alliance not only helps the initiators with added time and cost advantages, but also enhances the success potentials of the conference overall. Subsequent to this particular trend, the number of conference centers and conference planners has also augmented at a larger scale, offering well-defined and distinct dimensions to this particular genre in the contemporary event management industry. The other vital innovation observed in this particular industry genre was the inclusion of technology at a wider scale. References Business Vibes Network International Inc, 2014. Event Management. Industry Factsheets. [Online] Available at: http://www.businessvibes.com/content/event-management [Accessed March 21, 2014]. 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