Van der Vijver ：台灣的會議市場可以做得更好、更有效率。

Van der Vijver與會展協會王秘書長

滙集國際股份有限公司與君品酒店合作舉辦一場Meeting Design的Keyshop， 並邀請到MindMeeting創辦人 Mike Van der Vijver，前日接受《會展協會》王秘書長專訪，對於台灣會展產業的看法侃侃而談。本專訪獲得蔣涵如 總監 同意本次刊登。

Mike van der Vijver是MindMeeting共同創辦人之一，在MindMeeting擔任會議設計師，同時也為針對各式各樣的國際會議進行設計規劃，並稱之為Meeting Design (會議設計)。 Mike Van der Vijver認為台灣的會議市場可以做得更好、更有效率，可以朝向任何形式例如會議、研討會或講座來改進。會議也需要做改變，已不像以往一人分享知識看法給多人，而是以多人分享給多人的方式進行，為使會議達到效率，意味著你必須設計出截然不同的議程。

以下為Mike Van der Vijver談論台灣會展產業的訪談紀要：

Ask： How to encourage our meeting companies to do it?
問： 我們該如何激發會議公司執行呢?

Ans： Each market has different way that you need to do it, it bases on their culture characteristic , it is not an incident, people can start doing meeting differently. Its an important roles for organization such Euro Association, because in my view, it is part of the future professional to know this is vital, if we don’t move in this direction with the meeting industry, this industry might disappear, because technological things might take over, and your next competitor is not another PCO, your next competitor is another Facebook live.
In any country we will need to talk to you to get together in the meeting industry, we will need to talk to the meeting team leaders, to call to attention and focus the attention we do meetings or responsible for meeting, they can do much better job, but they are wasting their money, because they do not achieve the objective, even they do not know the objectives are.
答：不同的市場有不一樣的方式，有些是基於文化的不同，會議公司應該開始把自己的會議舉辦得特別並且與眾不同，像是EURO協會，扮演專業組織的重要腳色。以我的看法若是會議不朝向這個方式前進的話，這個產業可能會漸漸沒落甚至是消失，因為科技在進步，科技也許會替代這樣的會議方式，你未來的競爭者不是別間PCO公司，而可能是臉書直播。 任何想發展會展產業的國家必須先和會展團隊領導者溝通，他們可以做得更好，專注於會議、負起責任，但大多時候他們甚至沒有明確的目標，只是浪費錢而已。因此對於會議公司在這方面應該要提高警覺了解自己的公司要什麼，才可以達到更好的效率。

Ask：You mentioned that the different market have a different culture, and the meeting can be divided into corporate meetings or association meetings. Do you think those two have any different concept?
問：您提到基於不同的文化有不同的市場，會議可以分成企業會議及協會會議，您認為這兩種會議有不同的概念嗎?

Ans：Not necessary, how majority the organization is, but if you are the leader of a medium size company, or you are the leader of the professional association, you still wants the money that you investing your meeting to spend well and to make sure you achieve the objectives.
So from that viewpoint it is hardly any difference, there maybe a little difference is that company that company are more aware how they spend their money often than governments or organizations. Company have a bit more lead way and more free to change things. But if you have an association, a meeting once a year, and your members pay for that meeting, and you see your membership going down, you see the willingness of people come to this meetings go down because the program isn't really good, then your incomes goes down your association make it into trouble, so I think is equally important for both, what it requires equally for both is that the leadership who's willing to take the risk of starting to do things better.
答：不一定，要看公司的規模性，假如是一個中型規模公司的領導者或者專業會議協會的領導者，你當然希望你所花的經費能夠達到預設的目標，這部分沒有太大的差異，唯一有些微的差異是比起政府來說，企業較了解並且知道自己的資金用在於何處。公司有較多的空間也能夠自由的改變會議方式，但如果您的協會每年舉辦會員大會，會員繳交會議費用，你會發現有意願來參加會議的會員人數日漸減少，因為他們認為這樣的規劃不太好，甚至會導致你的收入減少，因此我認為兩種不同會議同樣重要，而此兩種會議方式的領導者是否願意開始試著改變把會議做得更好亦同樣重要。

Ask：In Taiwan situation, many meetings are initiated by the government, either central government or local government. From their viewpoint they do have their SOP something like that, especially this kind of meetings required our PCO to follow. In this case how to convinced our government to accept this sort of ideas?
問：目前在台灣的情況下，許多會議是由政府發起的而不是中央政府或地方政府，從他們的角度而言公開招待是否有SOP需PCO去遵循，因此我們應該如何讓政府也改變觀點並且接受這樣的想法?

Ans：There’s an important roles there for professional associations such as yours. Suppose you get an opportunity to speak to a journalist and you say to this journalist: we have these conferences and you know the effectiveness of this is, it is around one to two percent, there are ways to increase this effectiveness to 20 30 40 50 percent, why is the government doing this? Because they have standard operating procedures? That’s stupid! So that the message you start bring up there, then you start creating more awareness.
Another thing you can do is start doing your own meeting differently and invite these people as the hotel has done, doing thing differently. it’s something going to take 5, 10 maybe 15 years, but I believe the professional association will need to assist on need to do this differently to do them better learn about it and start spreading the message.
答：例如像你們專業的協會，假設有機會與一位具有影響力的記者，你跟這位記者說我們有這些會議要舉辦，而你也知道這樣的效果只能達到百分之一或二。 有其他方法可以達到百分之二十、三十甚至是四十的效率，但為什麼政府會要選擇前者? 因為他們有自己的SOP嗎? 這是徒勞無功的，應該要做的是開始建立知名度以及舉辦擁有自己特色的會議，並且要創新。這也許會花五至十年甚至是十五年的時間，但我相信專業的協會需要協助政府去落實以不同的方式達到推廣的作用。

Ask：Can you give some suggestions or advice to our association
問：您是否可以給我們協會一些建議?

Ans：The main advice is to first look at your own meetings, so that your members starting experience things differently; the second things is think about yourself as being part of a strategically vital part of the economy and is not hospitality.
The last one is the most difficulty one, meetings are not hospitality industry, yes you use hotel, you need meals and restaurants, you need flowers all that stuff but is not about hospitality, it is about creating change in society, that what meetings all about, and there’s a big misunderstanding.
One of the things as a professional association that you can do is begin clearing that the word ‘’business tourism’’ we are no longer used this word, because it create confusion, it’s not about tourism, yes its getting people into Taipei because they bring money, conference participant brings more money than ordinary tourism, but they don’t come as tourist, they come because they need to be here for economic reason.
They come as a doctor because they need to learn to do their professional job, the scientist they need to come because they need to know the new theory of how the universe works, whatever it is they don't come because they want to see how lovely Taipei is, it’s secondary goal, is not the primary goal, so as the professional association it is vital to get that message out there, for yourself and for the future of your members, that will be my main advice this three things.
答：我的建議是，首先檢視自身的會議形式，讓你們會員能開始體驗到不一樣的會議形態。第二件事，想想自己期望在經濟中要扮演的重要策略性角色為何，而不是定位在觀光產業。最後一件是最困難的，會議不是待客服務業。你的確會使用酒店，會需要餐點、餐廳、花束，以及其他所有相關的東西，但重點不再待客，創造社會的改變，才是會議的目的。
目前有一個很大的誤解，身為專業的協會來說，你能做的就是開始釐清「商務旅遊」這個詞，它易使人混淆，這不只是旅遊業。的確，它讓人們到台北，也帶來的錢財，相較於普通的旅遊遊客，會議參與者帶來了更多的錢財，但是，他們來是因為經濟因素，例如像是他們作為一位醫生，來參與會議吸收更多專業知識，例如科學家來，因為有新的理論讓他們更了解宇宙如何運作，不管他們的目的是什麼，他們來並不是因為他們看見台北多麼美麗，這只是次要目的，不是主要目的，而專業協會應該要把這樣的重要訊息傳達出去給協會的會員以及未來的潛在會員，以上三點是我想對台灣會展產業的建議。