Association experts are crucial for making the right contacts and matching associations with the conference offer in Flanders. Tuya Beyers is one of the three association experts of Tourism Flanders. In the past 14 years, she has built up quite some experience in various segments of the meeting industry, including Guava and The Oval Office. With the launch of The House of Congress (a ‘professional congress organizer’), she used her creative, logistical and substantive experience in organizing conferences and meetings.
The opportunity to work the association market for Tourism Flanders represented a new challenge for the Tuya Beyens. “I’m excited to share and combine my experience as an organizer with the experiences of the other association experts to bring Flanders to the next level. We divided Flanders into different growth sectors linked to the cities and divided among the three experts. I mainly will focus on the port, the chemical industry, the creative industry and the diamond sector. My colleagues will follow up on art, culture and the pharmacological industry. However, we are a team and we will assist each other, but the focus has been mirrored on our backgrounds and the projects we already delivered in order to further expand those contacts.”
The three association experts will promote Flanders internationally as a conference destination. They work closely with the local congress offices of Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent and Leuven. Tourism Flanders wants to attract around 300 international congresses by 2021, twice as much as today. “We have different goals. Initially, there are 300 congresses to bring to Flanders, but there are several ways to achieve that. On the one hand, there is the research and sales towards the associations, and on the other hand, together with our partners, we will try to raise our level and together with the stakeholders see where we can improve. Overall, many tasks ahead,” ends the association expert.
