Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua & Chief Marketing Officer, SITE The Italian author Cesare Pavese famously stated that “travel is a brutality”. He said it decades ago before security lines in London Stansted or passport control in Miami or the flight delays and missed connections that leave me writing this at 3am in Ataturk Airport,… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua & Chief Marketing Officer, SITE Incentive Travel Industry Index 2018 Last week Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE), Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) and Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals (FICP) released their eponymous joint survey for the Incentive Travel Industry. Another welcome example of associations working together for the greater… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua and Chief Marketing Officer, SITE My experience with associations Industry associations have played a hugely positive role over the almost 3 decades of my career in the business events industry. Through my participation in industry associations I have forged unshakeable business connections, advanced my knowledge and expertise as an… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua & Chief Marketing Officer, SITE Global Chains v Independent Hotels – the debate continues This week I found my mind exercised, once again, by the on-going debate around the merits and demerits of independent hotels versus global chain hotels. Our relentless contemporary pursuit of travel experiences that pivot around… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua The value of Incentive Travel? Meetings & Incentive Industry Professionals will find lots to love in the Events Industry Council’s (EIC) recently released Economic Significance of Meetings to the US Economy. Just consider these top line results. On overall revenues we generate $325 billion (eight position) for the US… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Harvard Research on Impact of a Conference I’ve been a subscriber to Harvard Business Review for many years now. It’s a great way to keep in touch with all the latest theories in the business world. The articles there are backed by meticulous research so you’re not reading half-baked,… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua As a community, I think it’s fair to say that meetings and incentives professionals are better than average at networking. By and large we’re a jolly lot, particularly those of us in a “client-facing” role who are let out of the office to attend launches, functions and educational events…. Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua In a typical thought provoking article on MeetingNet, Sue Pelletier kicks off 2018 with a challenge to the Business Events industry: “What would a truly human-centric meeting look, smell, sound, taste, and feel like? Her question arises from an article in the New York Times quoted by IMEX in the… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Director, SoolNua The Delights of Vinyl Two years ago I received a turntable for my birthday. It took me back 30 years as I re-indulged in the almost forgotten carnal delights of handling long playing records – the visual excitement of the artwork, the cerebral pleasure of the layers of information… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua In his poetic masterpiece The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot writes “April is the cruellest month …”. For the incentive industry and SITE, in particular, we might re-phrase Eliot’s words and say “2017 was the cruellest year” for this year we lost two shining lights, Jane Schuldt and Paul Flackett,… Read more »