18 Big Interview

Martin Fullard talks to Neil Brownlee , head of business events at VisitScotland , about the nation ’ s latest campaign to drive event legacy

OP26 is arguably the biggest global event the UK has seen in a generation . There are many ways in which this conference can be appraised , but there really is nothing more important than its legacy . It must be made clear that COP26 is a UK Government event , not a Scottish one , but as it so happens , it is taking place in Glasgow and therefore forms the perfect platform to discuss VisitScotland ’ s latest campaign : Journey to Change .

Martin Fullard : You launched Journey to Change in March . Tell us more about that campaign , so our readers understand how it has positioned Scotland in the domestic and international MICE markets . Neil Brownlee : Journey to Change is the title of a campaign that is an articulation of our Policy Driven Model . By describing it as a ‘ Policy Driven Model ’, it sounds quite governmental and quite heavyweight , and it must be treated as such . But like a lot of other trends in the business sector , before the pandemic hit things were under way , whether it ’ s how business or trade shows might change or the sustainable debate . But in the business events world , it ’ s more about what is the role of business events : are they more than breakfasts and room nights ? Because that is what most governments understand them to be and because it ’ s the easiest bit to measure . Before the pandemic , I came up with something called the Policy Driven Model and that was about aligning Scotland ’ s ambitions with the pursuit of business events into Scotland , with Scotland ’ s ambitions at a national level . Like other countries and cities , we tinkered around at the sector level .

I decided we can tie this into the delivery of Scottish Government policy and the first worrying thing was where is it written down ? But Scotland , happily , like most countries and even at local authority level , have their national objectives or national outcomes that would be 13 or 14 very broad-brush things – for example , giving every child the best start in life or reducing our contribution to global warming . Then they were underpinned by nearly 100 national indicators and that ’ s much more granular ; it ’ s everything from mental health down to transportation issues for elderly people . We can target anything we pursued via those built-in Scottish Government lists , which I can ’ t emphasise enough , every single country has one somewhere .

Added to that are the United Nations sustainable development goals , which dovetail beautifully with policy connections . I decided that the Policy Driven Model was the way forward for the national VisitScotland remit for business events . When you have huge convention bureaux or bureaux looking after cities such as Glasgow , Aberdeen and Edinburgh , they do the heavy lifting in terms of selling and representing their country / their city . So , the national remit must be slightly more heavyweight in terms of adding value because it ’ s not our job to go and duplicate what the sales team of Hilton are doing , it ’ s not our job to step on the toes of the city convention bureaux etc . That ’ s where we have to work closely with Aileen Crawford in Glasgow and Laurie Scott in Aberdeen , because trust is everything .

The Policy Driven Model is a higher-level strategic pursuit of adding value . We realised early on it ’ s quite dry and we needed the campaign to replace Legends , which was the first thing we did www . conference-news . co . uk