Marketing Awards in Business Events

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Tonight the world of Business Events will celebrate the  EVCOM Industry Awards (incorporating the Meetings Industry Marketing Awards – MIMA)  in London and at SoolNua Towers we’re rigid with excitement. That’s because we’re shortlisted in the Best Brand Marketing Campaign category with the #worldICECREAMindex, our tasty, left field approach to… Read more »

Why it’s important to be a Good Country

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua There are probably more rankings or indexes of nations than nations themselves. As humans we appear to have a primordial need to order and rank ourselves on multiple scales from tallest to richest to most intelligent and this compulsion extends to everything about us, including our countries. Many rankings… Read more »

What Makes a Successful Congress Destination?

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Congress Destinations In the late 80s when the iron curtain opened to reveal what used to be called Eastern Europe, Prague and Budapest were the first  actors to take to the stage and assume protagonist roles in the theatre of Congress Tourism. Initially they were unsteady and gauche, like the actor in Shakespeare’s… Read more »

The Meetings Industry: 5 questions we need to answer

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua IMEX is both Google and Amazon for the Meetings Industry. It’s a search engine and a showroom for network building, knowledge transfer and business exchange. It has a robust digital life but IMEX principally pivots around real people in real places in real time. It is by now the… Read more »

Prove it! Why we need organisations like the Site Foundation

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua From hands-on execution to hands-off strategy Following decades as a DMC and MICE agency, Patrick Delaney and I are now working as consultants / advisors on meetings, incentives, conferences and events under our new brand, SoolNua. In a short time we’ve moved from hands-on execution to hands-off strategy. We’ve… Read more »

The True Value of Meetings – UNWTO Report 2014

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is just over 10 years in existence. Headquartered in Madrid, Spain it publishes a comprehensive annual report on tourism as well as occasional reports on specific segments, sectors and geographies of the broader tourism industry. It’s recent report (March 2014) on The… Read more »

An ICCA Virgin in Shanghai

by Padraic Gilligan, Vice President, Ovation Global DMC and Vice President, Industry Relations, MCI Distant Love For over 20 years I’ve had an arms length relationship with her. From afar, like a courtly lover, I could appreciate her unique appeal –  petite and svelte, friendly and smart – but I couldn’t quite find the time,… Read more »