Dear Fellow IACC Members,
Thank you to so many of you for your warm welcome and congratulations! It is an honour and a privilege to serve as the next Global President of IACC. I have personally been involved in IACC for 10 years and Benchmark Hospitality was a founding member of the association. My father and Benchmark’s founder and chairman, Burt Cabanas was the second President of IACC. You could say it’s in the blood to help IACC continue to grow stronger in an ever-changing world of meetings and conferences. I am looking forward to the journey!
On my travels this past week to the IACC Europe conference in Milan, I read through years of materials I had saved from previous IACC meetings. Of course, I was trying to get my head around the past and future of the association, hoping to generate ideas and structure for our upcoming meeting. What I did not expect was to draw some important conclusions that were shared with the global board for discussion. Conclusions that the Global Board hopes make each and every one of you very proud to be a member of IACC:
IACC is an exclusive club of passionate people and organizations focused on the meetings experience – there is no other association like it on the planet! Trust us…we checked!
- IACC members should own the small to medium size meetings market
- We are mightier together than apart!
- We are differentiated – our product, our service, our passion and our values are unique!
- We must respect the past and create our future together in order for IACC to thrive
- IACC members must promote the IACC brand globally – the collective marketing voice of our members is our greatest resource
- Volunteerism by our members is core to IACC’s success
- Our members get out of IACC what they put into it
- Be loud, be proud….WE ARE IACC!!!
The Global Board and all chapter boards are working together on IACC 2020 – a global vision for the continued success of IACC into 2020 and beyond. In this ever changing landscape we must come together to keep IACC out on front, leading meetings globally. And the board can’t do this without member participation and guidance. We need your feedback and support.
On behalf of the board, I challenge each of you to step up your engagement with IACC. Are your sales people selling the value of IACC membership? Are you planning to attend the IACC-Australia Asia Pacific conference in January or IACC-Americas Connect in New York in April? I hope so.
Again, I thank you all for the warm welcome and look forward to serving IACC globally in the coming years.
Sincerely,
Alex Cabanas
