The Meetings Industry Association (mia) grew its membership by 16 per cent in 2019, it has announced.
Mia chair Kay England revealed at the association’s 30th Annual General Meeting (AGM) that mia membership had grown by 15.8 per cent, while it had retained 91 per cent of existing members.
England said the results demonstrated that mia members really valued the role, insight, support and care provided by the association – including the data and economic trend analysis provided by its benchmarking tool miaTouchstone.
The success of the mia’s busy events programme was also highlighted by the chair, with more than 1,000 delegates attending events such as Sales HIIT and the agent networking events.
Meanwhile, the miaList was attended by a record 273 attendees in 2019 – with 18 awards being announced to recognise what Kay described as ‘the incredible, passionate and hardworking people who make an amazing contribution to our special industry’.
Delivering his financial report, treasurer Ivor Turner revealed income had grown 9.27 per cent in the last year and that the association had had an excellent year in membership retention, development and growth.
He said: “The association is financially stable, is able to meet all of its commitments and is well equipped to deliver benefits and services to its members for the foreseeable future.”
Looking at the year ahead chief executive Jane Longhurst revealed the mia’s ambitions for 2020 are to deliver business improvement, financial and resource savings, first-class benchmarking as well as significant industry research.
As part of its 30th celebrations, Jane announced that later this year ‘the mia will be delivering the biggest and most exciting benefit since the launch of AIM accreditation in 2007’.
Alongside this work, Jane added that the mia is also working on further improvements to its AIM accreditation, which will see online upgrades as well as AIM Excellence replacing the existing AIM Gold rating.
Concluding the AGM was the appointment of the mia council for 2020/2021. Steve Jones of Wyboston Lakes was appointed chair and Charles Sargeant of Whittlebury Park as vice-chair while Nick Milne and Ivor Turner remain as honorary secretary and honorary treasurer respectively.
Other council members for 2020/21 include: Compass Group’s Jo Austin; 15Hatfields’ Warren Campbell; One Wimpole Street’s Nigel Collett; Park Plaza London Riverbank’s Rob Flinter; Accor’s Dawn Jaynes, Marketing Liverpool’s Jennifer Jensen; John Nugent of Green & Fortune and QEII Centre’s Mark Taylor.
M&IT editor Paul Harvey is a journalist with more than 15 years of experience. He began his career in the local press, working for various titles across the north. Since joining M&IT in 2013, he has become a trusted and respected voice in the sector, championing event professionals and reporting on all aspects of the events industry for the brand.
