When it comes to pharma, life sciences, medical and health care meetings—a prized market that typically attracts a highly educated, professional group of delegates—make sure to tap into facilities and other resources in the host city that appeal to attendees’ discipline.
This can benefit their hunger for experiencing something new that relates to their professional lives, and also further sharpen the focus of the meeting.
Academic and medical institutions serve as valuable resources for life sciences meetings, so many CVBs and DMCs are tapping local medical profession speakers, facilities, advocacy groups, sponsors and more—it’s also a big attendance-driver.
Apart from drawing an audience of highly educated American attendees such as doctors, medical meetings also attract delegates from around the world, so a smart destination is sensitive to the cultures of the international traveler and exhibitor. As such, showcasing a city’s medical-related treasures, especially when they are historical and cultural in nature, makes sense for a wide variety of attendees.
Philadelphia, for example, encourages off-site options such as visiting research hospitals, medically historic venues and museums that house medical art and artifacts. Anywhere else, you just can’t experience places like the Barnes Foundation, with its medical connection to the legendary art collection; the 19th century home of “The Father of American Surgery”; the nation’s first surgical amphitheater; or the Mütter Museum, with its medical history and oddities.
Providing a memorable customer experience for medical meeting planners and attendees will fuel their interest to return to the meeting year after year, and also help “justify” their attendance in the first place.
Bonnie Grant is executive director of the PHL Life Sciences Congress, a division of the Philadelphia CVB. She is responsible for marketing Greater Philadelphia, ranked the second-largest life sciences sector in the country, as a life sciences meetings destination. She was recently honored with the 2012 Philadelphia Business Journal Life Sciences Award in the “Best Consultant” category.
