Following our presentation at the City DNA conference in Tel Aviv last October 2022 Engage was again invited to share our experience of trying to work in partnership with the City of Liverpool but this time as guests of Luxembourg City Tourist Office at the first Luxembourg Tourism Summit 2023 held on Tuesday 17th May.
We were very well received by everyone at the conference and also by the other keynote speakers. It was especially joyful for us to be able to share with the audience about our wonderful experience during the recent Eurovision event hosted by Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine. It turned out to be quite poignant as Luxembourg hadn’t participated for almost 30yrs and have agreed to return to the Song Contest in 2024. Their tourism leaders were very keen to learn how things went in our city. I suspect that having won it 5 times before 1993 they are nervous about doing the same again! Should they make contact we will be delighted to pass them on to Claire McColgan at Culture Liverpool.
Engage was asked to share with everyone the experience we have had in delivering our 2022 Seminar Series Destination Liverpool Tourists vs Residents? and the follow-up we have undertaken since including our series of tourism conversations with residents entitled Day Tripper. What makes our story interesting to other places is simply that we are the first example of a city in Europe where residents have taken the initiative in opening a conversation with their DMO (Destination Marketing Organisation) which in our case is Marketing Liverpool. They want to know how we did it and how we were received. And what we learnt in the process.
It has come as a surprise to Engage that so much interest has been shown in what we have done. The presentation we made went down really well with a number of attendees saying our intervention at the summit was one of the best parts of the whole event. We enjoyed very much listening and learning from all the keynote speakers who addressed issues in a variety of topics based around 3 major themes of FUTURE RESILIENCE – BUSINESS EVENTS & REGENERATION – LOCAL RESONANCE.
Each sector answered a set question, for example: 1) RESILIENCE: What will characterise a smart and resilient destination for leisure tourism and for business events? 2) REGENERATION: How to design for business events with long-term positive impact and legacy? 3) RESONANCE: How do we develop a destination that welcomes visitors as temporary locals? The keynote speakers were experts in their field and came from all over Europe. They included:
- Olivier Ponti: Vice President Insights Forward Keys
- Thorsten Kausch: Managing Partner Stadtmanufaktur GmbH
- Matthias Schultze: Managing Director German Convention Bureau
- James Latham: Founder of Intellectual Capitals and The Iceberg
- Bruce Redor: Partner Gaining Edge
- Aluschca Ritchie: President of World Federation of Tourist Guides Associations.
The entire conference was moderated by our good friend Signe Jungersted CEO and Founding Partner of Group NAO.
More information can be found on their website for the Summit HERE We will also publish all speeches from the conference once they are available.
Engage shared with participants the first available video about Eurovision but this one released today 20th May 2023 is the best: