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Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA), India’s apex association of the events and experiential marketing industry yesterday announced a major tie-up with Turkey’s largest MICE operator, Inventum Global to open the doors to Antalya for the hosting of Indian outbound events, weddings and corporate meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions. The announcement was made at a media conference held at Le Meridien, New Delhi.
As the originating step of the new association, Inventum Global will now be hosting EEMA member agencies and their families at the EEMA Global Leadership Retreat scheduled to be held from May 28 till June 1, 2017 at the picturesque environs of Antalya.
The retreat will focus on insights into the future of the experiential and events business, weddings, leadership, skills development, rejuvenation and most importantly on familiarization with Antalya as a destination opportunity as it is introduced by Inventum Global to the Indian event industry. The Turkish partners working together for the EEMA Global Leadership Retreat under the aegis of Inventum Global include Rixos Hotels and Turkish Airlines. The Right Selection Speakers Bureau is supporting the Global leadership retreat on the content creation and is providing some of the finest global speakers that could open minds and become catalysts for giant strides that the event industry’s leaders could take.
Additionally, the EEMA Global Leadership Retreat will also feature top global and Indian speakers like Business Guru Marshall Goldsmith, South African Futurist Graeme Codrington, Ashish Bhasin - Chairman & CEO-South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network and others.
Announcing the partnership, the Turkish Ambassador ?akir Özkan Torunlar said, “Antalya is one of the world’s most popular destinations for MICE projects and India is the perfect partner to work with to build sustainable tourism that will help both the business of Antalya and Turkey overall. On behalf of the government and the people of Turkey, I welcome India’s event industry to our country.”
Speaking exclusively to EVENTAFQS, Bunyat Ozpak, Managing Partner, Inventum Global said, “At Inventum Global we have been aware of the large-scale weddings and MICE events organized by Indian events planners for quite some time now and we fervently believe that Turkey’s infrastructure is best suited for such extravagant experiences and festivities. In Antalya alone, we have over 500 hotels, amazing gigantic venues and convention centers that make it the most popular events tourism destination not just in Turkey but around the world as well.”
He adds, “We have already taken over 20,000 groups to Antalya because it has all the ingredients to become the most events friendly destination around the world and with this association and EEMA Leadership Retreat, the idea is to familiarize Indian event planners with Antalya. Because, if India understands Antalya then Turkey will become the second Thailand in terms of destination weddings organized from India. In Antalya, we promise the Indian events industry very high-quality service, a lot of choices at very good prices and the best hospitality. All these qualities combined are making Antalya the number one tourist destination in the world attracting over 15 million tourists every year.”
Turkey Tourism in the recent years has taken a massive hit due to the recent terror attacks in the country. Speaking on the security aspect for tourists, Bunyat elaborated, “I think Antalya, particularly as an events destination, is very secure and statistics prove that. In fact, it is one of the safest events destinations In Europe today.”
Commenting on the association with Turkey, Sabbas Joseph, President, EEMA stated, “EEMA leadership retreat is something that we are looking at as an annual event and get together of the best minds of our industry in a formal and informal environment. Formal because the retreat will see great content and involve hardcore learning, sharing of knowledge with the presence of global speakers like Marshall Goldsmith, Graeme Codrington, and others. And informal because the retreat has also been extended to the spouses and families of EEMA members. So, this is the perfect opportunity for EEMA members to learn more about the business, create new opportunities while enjoying with their families at the same time.”
When questioned if EEMA Leadership Retreat will be an annual engagement in the EEMA calendar from now on, Joseph elucidated, “This should be an annual event now. What’s interesting is that the minute we announced it we have also had interest from 5 other countries on similar opportunities like this. I think post the leadership retreat we will analyze the experience as the idea is to keep improving from here on.”
Spilling details of the association Joseph remarked, “Turkey has been focused on India for a long time, they have been engaging with the Indian events industry on various industry forums, they have also taken multiple agencies on fam trips and they recently hosted the EEMA leadership team for the World Tourism Forum. A lot of what happened today is a consequence of that event and we realized that here is a partner who is very serious about our events industry and we need to meet them halfway for mutual growth and benefit. As part of the retreat, there are also a couple of days where one can meet the best designers, venues, vendors, tech services to explore the ease of organizing events in Turkey. So, it’s clearly the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Will the EEMA member agencies be getting special privileges or incentives while organizing events in Turkey? Answering this Joseph said, “We are in the process of sorting out such details and some of these will be announced at the retreat as well. As of now, they are happy to create a facilitation cell to help EEMA agencies in ease of doing business and that speaks volumes about how serious Turkey is about the Indian events industry.”