Berlin. In May 2012, BestCities Global Alliance welcomed VisitBerlin Convention Office and the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau (GHCVB) as full partners – twelve months on both cities are celebrating their first anniversary with impressive bid wins.
Early in their first year as a BestCities partner, Berlin put forward a bid to host the 2021 Annual Congress of the International Fiscal Association (IFA) and three weeks ago they were announced as the successful city!
“Our first year with BestCities has provided us with many excellent opportunities to meet potential clients at trade shows such as IMEX Frankfurt and IMEX America as well as through our fellow partners and alliance network,” says VisitBerlin CEO Mr Burkhard Kieker.
“Attending our first BestCities Client Workshop in Singapore in June 2012, we met the IFA representative. Such was the success of our initial meeting we started supporting the client with the relevant information to bring their congress to Berlin. When we were short-listed for the next open year in 2021, we invited the International Fiscal Association to an official site visit in March this year which we organised with the German branch of the IFA.
“The International Fiscal Association had already selected two BestCities partners to host this congress: Vancouver in 2009 and Copenhagen in August 2013 and considering the long lead time before the actual congress, Berlin was brought into a perfect position through BestCities’ shared Bid Intelligence Register,” said Mr Kieker.
The Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) announced Houston as host of their 2016 meeting on 14th April following a special bid presentation by the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau. A joint lunch was hosted with three fellow BestCities partners – Edinburgh, Singapore and Vancouver which helped to secure the bid.
BestCities Board Chair, Ms Neeta Lachmandas congratulated both VisitBerlin Convention Office and Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau on a successful first year as BestCities partners. “Both bureaux have embraced their BestCities partnership unreservedly by incorporating our quality management system and service standards into their everyday operations. In doing so, they are reaping the benefits of winning these major meetings for their respective cities, she said.
Photo caption: (L-R): Daniel Palomo GHCVB, Heike Mahmoud visitBerlin, Jorge Franz GHCVB and Marco Oelschlegel visitBerlin
