The first General Meeting of the members of the Russian Convention Bureau was held in St. Petersburg on the site of the VIII Eurasian Event Forum EFEA (January 16-18, 2018), where the results of the Bureau's activities in 2017-2018 were discussed, as well as a number of important organizational issues that have a direct impact on the development of the Russian event industry market and companies within the Bureau. Meeting participants were presented with the annual report on the organization activity, the status of the current projects, the work plan for the following periods, as well as the event industry market analysis.

According to the survey conducted at the end of 2018 among the member companies of the Bureau, about 95% of the companies are satisfied with the activities of the Russian Convention Bureau. The key drivers of membership in the Bureau are the work in the current business environment and community of leading market players, the possibility of expanding professional contacts, dialogue and exchange of experience, as well as addressing important issues in their activities.

Alexander Stuglev, Chairman of the Board and Director of the Roscongress Foundation, noted: "The first year is a time of formation and it would be too ambitious to wait for immediate results. Nevertheless, the pace of development demonstrated by the Russian Convention Bureau allows us to draw a conclusion about the effectiveness of the organization's work and right vector of movement.”

General Meeting also included meetings of industry sections, where participants discussed topical issues within the framework of their business areas: Destination Marketing, Meetings Management, Meetings Support, Venues. In addition, the expert council fr om among the members of RCB took part in a working meeting with representatives of the ANO "Russian Quality System" to discuss promising steps in the formation of standards in the national industry meetings and the creation of a system of effective evaluation of services provided by the RCB members.

In the evening the first intellectual games of the Russian Convention Bureau took place on the site of A. I. Putilov's Mansion. The main "intellectual" prize was contested by teams of companies representatives - members of the Russian Convention Bureau. The topics of questions were the industry of meetings and history of St. Petersburg, which allowed to demonstrate knowledge, resourcefulness and team spirit of the players. Intellectual partner of the games was Event LIVE - business portal for event industry professionals.

"It is very important for the Russian Convention Bureau to create an atmosphere of trust, unanimity and sincere interaction among the members of the bureau. Only thus, together, can we achieve significant success in our common endeavor - promotion of Russia in the international market of meetings industry. We hope that Intellectual games will become a new tradition for the bureau’s companies! - noted Alexey Kalachev, CEO of the Russian Convention Bureau.

Being a partner of the VIII Eurasian Event Forum EFEA, the Russian Convention Bureau took an active part in various events of the business program, including - in the field meeting of the Committee on exhibition and fair and congress activities of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, which addressed the issues of state regulation of the industry, organization and implementation of significant projects in Russia and abroad. Sergey Bednov, Chairman of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Committee for exhibition, trade fair and congress activities, Director General of Expocentre JSC, moderated the session (Moscow, Russia).

With the support of RCB, a talk show was held "In the Golden Age of business forums: how to create a successful forum for businessmen", where, as part of a lively discussion, invited speakers shared their approaches to preparation and implementation of business forums. The talk show was moderated by Vivian Xu, Managing Director, Headquarters (HQ) & MIM Global Magazine (Brussels, Belgium).

As part of the VIII Eurasian Event Forum, EFEA Awards, an annual international award ceremony EFEA Awards, was held for the event organizers The Russian Convention Bureau established the special nomination "Perspective" for the contribution to the development of the destination in Russia, wh ere the winner was the city of Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region, which in 2018 showed the best result in the "Rating of Event Potential of the Russian Regions in 2018", rising from 16th to 8th place, and thus entering the top 10 destinations with the greatest event potential.

Also with the participation of the Russian Convention Bureau a pitch session was held "Associations in the Event Industry. Competition or cooperation?" at which representatives of Russian event industry bureaus considered the issues of interaction between professional bureaus working in the Russian market.