The Dubai Convention Bureau (DCB) has revealed plans to develop an accreditation programme for individuals or companies that plan to set up professional congress organisers (PCOs) in Dubai.
The programme would prevent the spread of bad practice in the meetings industry, which risks compromising the reputation of Dubai among events planners abroad, said Natasha Tomé-Zwarts, head of marketing and communications, DCB.
“We want to bring in an accreditation scheme for new PCOs to ensure a certain service standard has to be met,” she told MIME.
“It’s bad for a destination if a company comes here and is met with unprofessional behaviour or practice. This can be avoided if companies have ratings, just like hotels have ratings.”
DCB is also in the process of developing long-term goals such as a unified bidding process, so that hotels and destination management companies (DMCs) work together to attract business to the destination rather than competing and compromising on pricing.
“It is a long term goal,” said Tomé-Zwarts. “First we must introduce ourselves to the industry, then explain the group bidding process.”
The implementation of a new IT system that will enable event requests to be sent to hotels that match the criteria in that request is also in the pipeline.
The DCB is also planning an advertising campaign in the next few months to improve awareness about the organisation in the region and promote its services to planners.
“We want planners to recognise the benefits of working together with us,” Tomé-Zwarts added.
Other DCB initiatives include a new edition of The Definitive Meeting and Event Planners Guide, which will be launched in the next couple of months.
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