Client Case Study
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PIANC Case study
PIANC (World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure)
MMX Congress
9th – 14th May 2010
PIANC is a worldwide non-political and non-profit technical and scientific organisation of national governments, corporations and private individuals.
PIANC has membership in 65 countries, including 31 qualifying members, two international river commissions, about 450 corporate members (private companies, harbour agencies, firms, laboratories, chambers of commerce etc.) and about 2000 individual members.
2010 is the year PIANC celebrated its 125th year as a professional association. PIANC holds an international technical Congress once every four years in one of the member countries, with this year being the 32nd.
The planning for this Congress began in 2005. The UK was chosen as host destination for 2010 as there had not been a UK Congress since 1981 in Edinburgh.
PIANC wanted delegates to have a high-quality experience in the UK to show off what it has to offer; therefore sourcing a location which could provide a variety of good experiences was vital.
It was important that a location was sourced which had interesting technical aspects relative to the waterborne industry for members and places of cultural interest for their partners. This was solved when PIANC saw Liverpool’s potential to meet all these needs.
PIANC decided they wanted to go to Liverpool for a number of reasons:
PIANC felt that it was important delegates could stay in hotels within a relatively easy walking distance to where the Congress was being held and this was easily achievable in Liverpool.
For the partners it was important there were historic and cultural areas to explore in the host city, and in the surrounding area.
Transportation was another challenge as PIANC needed to transport delegates from the Congress to other places for technical visits, and partners for day tours. This was easily dealt with at the BT Convention Centre Liverpool as the Convention Centre could accommodate buses.
Mike Thorn, UKGovernment Chief Delegate, PIANC, said “As an association, we felt that ACC Liverpool was an extremely good venue and well up to the international standards that we expected from an organisation of this kind. Without exception, the delegates were very pleased with Liverpool and the location of the venue. We had a very memorable Congress and I am very pleased that we put our trust in ACC Liverpool even before it was built.”