In their program evaluations, attendees at the 2010 ICCA Congress gave the event's education sessions their highest-ever ratings, the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) announced last week.
The 2010 ICCA Congress, which took place Oct. 23-27 in Hyderabad, India, received nearly 1,400 session evaluations, submitted electronically using Spotme networking and feedback devices. Among those, 51.3 percent were "excellent" and 40.4 percent were "good." Every single session had a higher "excellent" score than the sum of "satisfactory" and "below standard" scores.
"Whilst delegates usually have the most vivid memories of the social events and the new business contacts and friends they make at an ICCA event — and both of these were wonderfully positive facets of the Hyderabad Congress — it is the quality of educational content and intellectual stimulation that really determines the success of a meeting," said ICCA CEO Martin Sirk. "Our delegates came from almost 60 countries with often wildly different business and learning cultures, for many of them English was their second or third language, and 90 percent of our content was created especially for this single Congress. The panels of speakers had typically never worked together before, rehearsal time was extremely limited, and the levels of interactivity we were aiming for meant that there were tremendous levels of uncertainty about how well things would work out. In the event, this was our highest scoring program ever, so we're really grateful to the more than 80 speakers and panelists who contributed."
The 2011 ICCA Congress will take place Oct. 22-26 in Leipzig, Germany. For more information, visit www.iccaworld.com/dbs/congress2011.