Inspiration Hub

On the 21st of August, Goyang Destination Week was opened by Lee Yoon-seung, Mayor of Goyang. The event hosted over 400 professionals from the Korean meetings and events industry, and created a platform for #eventprofs to educate, learn, and network together. Guy Bigwood was invited to deliver a keynote and share insights gathered through the GDS-Index.

Goyang is one of the largest cities in the Seoul Capital Area and home to Kintex – the largest convention and exhibition venue in Korea. It has become a hub for the MICE industry, and in the next 10-years will see the opening of many new hotels, a huge 20,000-person arena, and further extensions to Kintex. Goyang is a champion of Smart Urban Design and Sustainable Events. Last year they won the GDS-Index ‘Best Improved Award’, and with the support of the GDS-Index they continue to improve their development strategy and operational performance.

Guy’s presentation “Leveraging Sustainability for Success” – described how destinations around the globe are engaging, inspiring and enabling the transition to more sustainable cities and events. Key insights from our whitepaper about global megatrends and challenges facing our industry – in addition to strategies and tactics to accelerate the development of sustainable destination – complimented this description. Guy also ran a workshop on “Organising high-performance sustainable events” with Genevieve Leclerc from Meet4impact who delivered a presentation on the Sustainable Development Goals, and how to measure and manage event impact.

You can view Guy’s entire presentation here:

Other international speakers included: sustainability champions Matthias Posh, president of the International PCO Association (IAPCO), Noor Hamid from ICCA, Randy Durband from the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, Rajeev Kohli from Creative Travel and Milos Milovanovic from Gaining Edge.