Peanuts, fairy dust, siestas and holograms? Julie Hayes speaks to John Gallery of Great Potential about the rebirth of the meetings industry.

THE UK meetings and conference industry needs to up its game, York business tourism consultant John Gallery told an audience at the York and Scarborough Conferences Showcase last month.

As the meetings industry struggles through the recession, venues and event organisers have to make people want to go to meetings if UK cities are to compete with other cities in the world as a business tourism destination.

Spending cutbacks and the advances in video-conferencing, 3D web conferencing and the increased business use of online groups, have changed the meetings industry, he said, but people do still need to hold face-to-face meetings. Technology is also an opportunity for event organisers, he said, who can beam international speakers into the room via video or even hologram, as Prince Charles did to speak at a green energy conference in the Middle East.

He encouraged conference organisers to consider the future audiences of meetings, and develop smart phone apps to engage delegates. Other high technologies, such as “smartdust”, microscopic microelectromechanical sensors – a fairy dust-like solution to monitoring almost anything - could be adapted for the meetings industry to register delegates wirelessly, for example.

“The reasons for having meetings are changing, partly because of technology. It means that venues that provide meeting space have to be more innovative in what they use that space for.

“Change the habit and it changes the paradigm, making it more interesting and more valuable. Have you ever considered scheduling a siesta?” he said.

John cited an East Midlands conference centre, which rebrands itself entirely for the buyer, becoming the Ford Motor Company Conference Centre during the event, he said.

And in Amsterdam, there’s a conference centre with a choice of five different colours, ten smells and 25 different layouts. Creative meetings would be held in yellow rooms, and the smell of peanuts, for example, is supposed to produce a relaxed environment.

“It can make a difference to the outcome of that meeting. But conference venues in the UK often don’t think this way at all. It’s not about chairs and tables anymore.”

John Gallery was general manager of The Swallow Hotel, now known as York Marriott, on Tadcaster Road, York, before he started the business tourism consultancy Great Potential in 1999.

In 2005 he also set up an online business latemeetings.com, which sold last-minute deals to meeting buyers, and then sold it to meetings booking agency Expotel.