Artificial intelligence had its own place on the programme of the CityDNA Summer School in Dijon, particularly during Jonathan Easton’s session on the technology and AI revolution. What interested me more, however, was how often AI appeared elsewhere during the week. It came into discussions about bidding, corporate clients, destination discovery, sustainability, data, PCOs and the future role of convention bureaux. That probably says more about where we are with AI than any individual presentation could. AI is gradually becoming part of the normal operating environment of the business-events industry. We are moving beyond individual AI use Most destination organisations have already experimented with generative AI. Employees use it for writing, summarising documents, translating, researching, developing ideas and preparing presentations. These applications can save considerable time, although they rarely change the organisation itself. The more interesting development is what happen...

I spent this week in Dijon at the 40th City Destinations Alliance Summer School, surrounded by people working across convention bureaus, associations, PCOs, corporate meetings, sustainability, technology and destination development. The programme covered a lot of ground, from bidding and client expectations to inclusion, legacy, AI and the changing role of convention bureaux. Across these discussions, a fairly coherent picture of the business-events industry emerged. Convention bureaus are moving beyond selling destination product. Increasingly, our role is to understand what an organisation wants to achieve, determine whether our destination has something relevant to contribute, bring the right people together locally and demonstrate afterwards what the meeting actually achieved. The right meeting can be more valuable than the biggest meeting For years, much of the business-events discussion has been dominated by delegate numbers, hotel nights and economic impact. Those indicators...