by Pádraic Gilligan, Chief Marketing Officer, SITE & Managing Partner, SoolNua DMCs in the 1990s When you’re deeply immersed in a particular silo or business sector, that’s really all you see. During the early years of Delaney Marketing when Patrick and I were a struggling DMC, all chatter was about client going direct, DMC getting… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Following months of relative calm, fractious chatter regarding the value of Destination Management Companies / Consultants (DMCs) has rendered the waters of our industry choppy and turbulent again. This chatter has followed the publication of a White Paper on the relationship between Core PCOs travelling with Association clients from… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua My good DMC friend Fran Rickenbach has been pursuing me for some time now. I won’t deny that this frightens the daylights out of me. Those who know Fran know why. She’s a formidable lady, a “mountie who always gets her man”, in a manner of speaking. You see… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua The world of the Destination Management Company or DMC has been under-going a radical change over the past 10 years. I wanted to say “kaleidoscopic” change but, on reflection, much of this change has not been pretty, muddying rather than clarifying the value proposition at the heart of the DMC offer. Accordingly, there’s… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua It was a long way to go for a couple of days but the trip to the truly motivational Resort at Squaw Creek was worth it for many reasons. The opportunity to spend two days in creative brainstorming with some of the best minds in the DMC industry was reason… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua A recent survey of meeting planners by Development Counsellors International (DCI) on destination selection highlights some very interesting trends. Somewhat counter-intuitively, social media is regarded as unimportant while email is ranked as the favoured channel for communication. Of interest in the context of this post, however, are the 90% of respondents… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua On Products and Brands When Arthur Guinness brewed his famous stout for the first time back in 1759 little did he know that 256 years later 1m people would flock to his factory simply to visit. The same for Thomas Phillips (Bushmills), John Jameson, D.E. Williams (Tullamore Dew) and… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua A new business model? My industry friend Dries Jacobus, Managing Director Borealis Incentives, Belgium posed the following question recently on the ADMEI Linkedin Group As a DMC in Belgium (where taxes on labour are high, so staff is expensive) clients very often re-negotiate the staff cost. Sometimes down to… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua *I recently co-produced the Gala Dinner Entertainment at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna with a dear friend and client in the Finance and Insurance sector. Here’s an account of the evening from the perspective of a fictitious programme qualifier, Bob Newman. A kind of homecoming It was 5:05pm and his… Read more »
by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Since this blog began over two years ago I’ve posted a number of times on the evolving world of DMCs. These posts were then gathered together using the excellent Publicate and posted with the title “How important are DMC’s in today’s marketplace?” on the Site Global Linkedin Group. I’m… Read more »