Collaboration with clusters and areas of strength
In autumn 2024, MeetDenmark received a grant from the Danish Board of Business Development for the work to strengthen Denmark's competitiveness in the congress market, as well as innovation, internationalisation and growth in Danish companies within national areas of strength.
Establishing closer and more strategic collaboration between Danish clusters/areas of strength and Danish congress destinations will strengthen the destinations' international competitiveness. This is partly because the professional coherence and integration of congress and destination is increasingly an important competitive parameter for winning congress hosting.
The background includes the rapidly growing sustainability agenda and the accompanying need for the value of a congress - for the customer, the delegates and the destination alike - to be greater than the congress's economic, environmental and climate costs.
The broader societal value can be increased, among other things, by working with Legacy. When we attract more international researchers, specialists and decision-makers within Danish areas of strength to congresses in Denmark, Danish companies also gain a larger platform to strengthen their international networks, acquire new knowledge, attract new talent and profile their solutions. These are ingredients that can contribute to increased innovation in Danish companies.
The project will establish four strategic cluster–destination partnerships. The four partnerships are, respectively, Destination Fyn and Odense Robotics, Wonderful Copenhagen and Danish Life Science Cluster, Destination Nord and Green Hub Denmark, and VisitAarhus and Food & Bio Cluster.
Each partnership will develop a strategic action plan for their future collaboration. They will also develop long lists of the international congresses that best match the goals, wishes and needs of both the clusters and the destinations. On this basis, the cluster–destination pairs will, over the coming years, develop and submit bids for a number of selected congresses. Each cluster–destination partnership will also review the congresses that the destination has already won within the respective field, in order to discuss the possibilities for increasing the broader value creation.
To ensure that the knowledge and experience built up in the project is disseminated, MeetDenmark, together with the project's partners, will also develop a case catalogue to inspire other Danish destinations and clusters and to guide them on how to approach it.
Last but not least, the Danish cluster - destination partnerships will be communicated to potential international customers in order to increase interest in Denmark as a congress destination. In this connection, the pairs will enter into dialogue with the relevant public - private marketing consortia.
The project runs from October 2024 to September 2027 and is carried out as a collaboration between MeetDenmark, Destination Fyn, Destination Nord, VisitAarhus, Wonderful Copenhagen and four business clusters: Danish Life Science Cluster, Food & Bio Cluster Denmark, Green Hub Denmark, Odense Robotics.
MeetDenmark will continuously share results and insights to inspire both Danish clusters and tourism players to engage in sustainable meeting tourism.
