Professional conference organiser

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

Role of PCOs

PCOs can typically work as consultants for academic and professional associations. They usually provide full service management for conferences including but not limited to 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

Recent 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

References

  1. ↑ Conferences and Conventions: A Global Industry By Tony Rogers
  2. ↑ Information drawn from the British Conference Venues Survey 2005 Archived July 28, 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ Survey of Conferences in Scotland in 2006 Archived April 11, 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Paid report in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management (first part free) Archived December 7, 2007 at the Wayback Machine

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, January 10, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.