Conference center association IACC announced it has entered into a five-year partnership with MPI to share educational content from MPI’s national and chapter events, as well as collaborate on online content and research initiatives. The initiative was announced at IACC-Americas Connect 2017.
Highlights of the agreement, revealed at IACC’s annual conference on April 4 at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center in Los Angeles, include the streaming of educational content from MPI’s annual World Education Congress (WEC) at IACC-accredited conference facilities to planners.
“The MPI pact is just the beginning,” said Alex Cabanas, IACC’s global president and CEO of Benchmark, a hospitality company, during the opening general session of the April 4-6 conference.
The two organizations have already partnered on educational efforts, with IACC delivering content at MPI Southern California Chapter’s Conference and MPI Philadelphia Area Chapter’s Education Institute. MPI is delivering two educational sessions at IACC-Americas Connect, and the two associations said they are exploring additional opportunities to share educational sessions at additional MPI events globally.
“The leadership teams at MPI and IACC have been collaborating on a number of successful initiatives over the last two years and now seems the perfect time to bring all this great work together under one strategy to allow us to seize more opportunities and provide more for our respective members,” said IACC CEO Mark Cooper in a statement announcing the alliance. “Just as MPI is passionate about designing great meeting experiences, IACC is passionate about venues delivering an exceptional meetings experience. It’s the perfect marriage.”
The first live-streamed conference at IACC facilities will be MPI WEC 2017, held June 19-22 in Las Vegas.
“One of our top priorities at MPI is to continuously enrich our portfolio of professional development offerings, and this collaboration with IACC will certainly help us deliver more value to our membership community,” said Paul Van Deventer, president and CEO of MPI, in a statement accompanying the announcement. “We are especially excited about the opportunity to live-stream WEC to members that are unable to make it to the conference this year and in an environment that encompasses peer-to-peer engagement and networking.”
While live-streaming will allow meeting planners who are unable to attend WEC an opportunity to receive content, the effort will also benefit IACC by showcasing its facilities to potential customers, according to Cooper. The live-streaming also opens up a learning opportunity for ad hoc planners.
In other IACC-Americas Connect news, IACC announced MPI will continue to participate in its IACC Meeting Room of the Future research project, featuring input from global leaders in conference and meeting space design, technology, hospitality, delegate collaboration and conference management.
In the first phase of the project, MPI augmented IACC’s research by providing input from a select group of its membership. The second phase will include input from venue buyers and will be released at MPI’s WEC 2017, with IACC conducting a Research Showcase at the conference, according to IACC.
“This is the perfect project to use as an example of the power of the alliance, as it combines venue innovation and entrepreneurialism with the expertise of [meeting professionals],” said Cabanas in a release on the effort.
