St. Petersburg. The Board of EFAPCO, the European Federation of the Associations of Professional Congress Organisers, has taken the first steps in bringing Russia into a mainstream European arena for conferences and business tourism. “We were delighted to hold our Board meeting in a non-EFAPCO member country, for the first time, because people from St. Petersburg who we had met at Europe’s major industry trade shows were keen to explore ways in which we could help Russia to establish its own association of PCOs and, in turn, join EFAPCO’s powerful networking mechanism,” says Federation President Nicolas Le Brun. “We have offered them advice and guidance about how to bring PCOs together to co-operate with each other.” The round-table discussions at the Radissson SAS Royal Hotel were led by Sergei Korneev, Vice-President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry. Among the participants was Maxim Sokolov, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Government Committee for Investments and Strategic Projects. Le Brun adds: ”Our main focus remains on enhancing Europe’s role as the world’s leading congress destination, on furthering our professionalism and on gaining rightful political recognition from the EU, but in terms of business tourism I think we learnt a great deal from each other and from our new friends in St. Petersburg.” www.efapco.eu