Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the divergence between the tasks and roles of convention bureaux (CB) in North America and Europe.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey among 55 CB’ managers was conducted. A total of 75% of respondents represented institutions operating in European cities, 25% – in North American ones. This research mainly focused on managers’ opinions about the importance of tasks and roles performed by CB and the degree to which the institutions manage to fulfil them. Therefore, importance-performance analysis was used in the study.

Findings

CB in North America and Europe broadly differ as to the characteristics of both groups of institutions. They include their time of operation, number of employees, annual budget and types of events that CB try to attract to the cities that they represent. There are no such differences when it comes to the importance and performance of institutions’ tasks and roles. The way in which managers evaluate them is quite similar because the respondents pay the closest attention to the roles of a marketer and an agent of a city played by a convention bureau. Differences lie in the meaning assigned by managers to the particular tasks of surveyed institutions.

Originality/value

The survey was carried out on a relatively small sample dominated by European institutions. However, the study attempts at investigating the roles and tasks of CB, with only few previous studies on this topic, including the ones comparing CB’ activity in different countries or on different continents. Moreover, proposed recommendations might be useful for a large group of managers and do not have to be limited only to institutions from Europe and North America.

中文翻译：

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CB vs CVB——欧洲和北美会议局的任务和角色有什么区别？

目的

本文的目的是分析北美和欧洲会议局 (CB) 的任务和角色之间的分歧。

设计/方法/方法

对 55 名 CB 经理进行了调查。共有 75% 的受访者代表在欧洲城市运营的机构，25% 在北美城市。这项研究主要集中在管理者对 CB 所执行的任务和角色的重要性以及机构设法完成这些任务和角色的程度的看法。因此，在研究中使用了重要性-绩效分析。

发现

北美和欧洲的 CB 在这两组机构的特征方面存在很大差异。它们包括他们的运营时间、员工人数、年度预算以及 CB 试图吸引到他们所代表的城市的活动类型。就机构任务和角色的重要性和表现而言，没有这种差异。管理者评价他们的方式非常相似，因为受访者最关注营销人员和会议局所扮演的城市代理人的角色。不同之处在于管理者分配给被调查机构的特定任务的含义。

原创性/价值

该调查是在由欧洲机构主导的相对较小的样本中进行的。然而，该研究试图调查 CB 的作用和任务，之前关于这个主题的研究很少，包括比较不同国家或不同大陆的 CB 活动的研究。此外，提议的建议可能对一大批管理人员有用，而不必仅限于来自欧洲和北美的机构。