Leveraging Your Destination’s Intellectual Capital for Success

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  1. Harness Local Leadership: Engage local leaders active in international associations to attract international conferences and serve as ambassadors for your destination’s growth.
  2. Optimize Your Intellectual Capital: Invest in long-term, strategic relationships with local leaders to foster deeper collaborations, helping attract prestigious international events and elevate your destination’s reputation.
  3. Position Your Destination as a Knowledge Hub: Harness the expertise of local leaders to transform your community into a knowledge-based society, as actively engaging with intellectual capital can help build a thriving, innovative destination that attracts talent, investment, and global collaborations.

The main goal of any society is to improve its abilities and quality of life, allowing citizens and future generations to reach their full potential. This aim is especially urgent in today’s turbulent world, where conflicts, energy issues, migration, and health challenges create an uncertain future. At the same time, rapid technological advancements are creating new possibilities for communication, artificial intelligence, and innovation across all sectors. While these breakthroughs promise quick progress, they also raise ethical concerns, especially in a highly competitive global environment where resources, technology, and social influence are often used to push conflicting agendas.

Amid these complex global dynamics, it is clear that human and intellectual capital are vital assets for every society. Investing in and valuing these resources is crucial for effectively tackling challenges and seizing new opportunities.

This highlights the potentially growing importance of the meetings industry. By recognizing its unique role in fostering and utilizing a destination’s intellectual capital, the meetings industry can drive growth and help transform communities into knowledge-based, innovative societies. This shift requires moving beyond the traditional focus on high-spending delegates as a primary economic benefit. Instead, our industry plays a strategic role in identifying and engaging local intellectual capital, strengthening a society’s competitive edge.

Future generations will seek societies that offer quality education, advanced technologies, global collaborations, and vibrant communities that support personal and social development. Building such a society demands investing in intellectual capital—the people and institutions advancing science, technology, and social progress. This investment is essential to shaping a community’s “soft power” and will determine its ability to attract and retain top talent for generations to come.

In the meetings industry, the true carriers of intellectual capital are local leaders who hold influential roles in international scientific, business, and professional associations, earning global recognition for their achievements. These individuals not only enhance our reputation but can also drive our success by advocating for their international associations to host events in our destination, effectively becoming our “congress ambassadors.” Ambassador Programs are designed to honor these leaders for attracting significant international congresses, which bring lasting benefits to our communities.

However, a critical question remains: Do we truly understand and engage these esteemed local leaders who form the intellectual capital of our destination?

Many Ambassador Programs only offer one-time support or annual recognition, falling short of fostering deep, strategic partnerships. This limited approach suggests we may be overlooking the full potential of our ambassadors. Leading destinations have recognized this, promoting themselves as knowledge-rich, well-connected societies with leaders actively working to benefit their communities. By embracing a more collaborative and sustained approach, we can more effectively harness and celebrate the intellectual capital that sets us apart.

The Intellectual Capital Studies, by GainingEdge Analysis & Research (GEAR) aims to answer key questions for destinations:

• How much intellectual capital do they have, measured by the number of local leaders serving on international association boards and committees?
• How well do they engage and utilize this intellectual capital compared to competing destinations?
• Where are the gaps that can be leveraged for better outcomes, both in attracting international meetings and in engaging with local leaders, academic institutions, and research centers?

In the meetings industry, this data is typically segmented by the size of conferences organized by associations where local leaders are active. It can also be categorized by scientific fields, key business sectors, etc. This information helps destinations connect with local leaders who can support bids for international conferences, leading to better business outcomes.

Additionally, it provides a broader perspective on how to collaborate with local leaders and institutions rich in intellectual capital to foster greater engagement at the destination level. For deeper insights, comparing these metrics against a competitive set, particularly at the city level, is crucial. Benchmarking against other international destinations will highlight areas of strength and weakness in the destination’s offerings, identifying strategic opportunities for improvement.

Overall, engaging local intellectual capital—by identifying and leveraging local leaders active in international association governance—is key to a destination’s success. This approach not only boosts the effectiveness of bidding and ambassador programs but also positions destinations as knowledge-driven societies and cities of the future.


Miloš is the author of the Destination Competitive Index, a global benchmarking tool for international convention destinations, published annually since 2018. He is also the author of the Leveraging Intellectual Capital global report, aimed at identifying the relative strengths of destinations in terms of the presence of their local leaders in the governing bodies of international associations. Additionally, he is a certified instructor of the International Congress & Convention Association, providing training courses for the ICCASkills program, a recognized certification for suppliers in the MICE industry.