Partnership. The Energy Cities Alliance – a gathering of major energy-associated destinations working together to grow their business events sectors – has welcomed its fifth member – Stavanger in Norway. Stavanger, the centre of the Norwegian energy industry for almost 50 years, joins the original four alliance partners Aberdeen, Abu Dhabi, Calgary and Perth, Australia who supply Meeting and Corporate Planners with critical information needed to directly access members’ business events contacts to make conferences financially and logistically successful.
“We welcome Stavanger to the Alliance which is now focused on increasing its membership to include every region,” said Gillian Taylor, the Alliance Chairwoman. The five partners have been meeting at IMEX 2013 to determine the alliance growth strategy.
“The aim will be to increase brand exposure through market presence at energy-related events, not only event-related events,” said Taylor. “We will look to expand distribution of information about our partner cities’ meetings events offering to energy event organisers; examine the feasibility of an ‘Energy Knowledge Exchange’ personnel-exchange programme with partners sponsoring ambassadors to attend events in other partner cities alongside a cross-staff training scheme; and promote the sharing of energy industry science and industry best practice between partners.”
The Alliance is upping its positioning as a ‘One-stop-shop’ for energy conference organisers who need to rotate events to different regions. “Rather than begin from scratch with RFPs to cities with which they have little leverage, organisers can use the Energy Cities Advantage to jump-start a business relationship allowing an alliance partner to swiftly work to the organiser’s benefit,” explained Taylor.
