C A S E S T U D Y
the conference,” Catherine Kalamidas, congresses account manager at Rotterdam Partners explains. “Once it went virtual, as you can imagine, like most CVBs, we were in a phase of reinvention: what is our value proposition? What is the service that we’re providing for a virtual event that is not coming to Rotterdam anymore?” Initially, Rotterdam Partners put together a virtual toolkit, provided destination images and conducted its own research to nd di erent videos that could be used to communicate the spirit of the city. Using its relationships with local experts, Rotterdam Partners tapped into their knowledge of how it could mark the meeting without
physically hosting it. Ideas, including a small dinner at an iconic venue in front of the lit-up Erasmus Bridge, were tossed into the mix, but Covid wasn’t letting up and any dreams of connecting in-person were shattered. But the idea of lighting up the Erasmus Bridge in ESPID’s colours stuck. “ e bridge is our number one icon. So, I thought, ‘Let’s make this happen’. But it turns out it’s more di cult than we thought because a bridge apparently has a lot of stakeholders and not everybody was able to agree, so they said no. But we came up with a wonderful alternative,” Kalamidas adds. Kenes Group, ESPID and Rotterdam
58 APRIL 2021 AMIMAGAZINE.GLOBAL
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