ASAE’s collaboration with DI will leverage the strengths of both organizations to initially focus on the issues of event crisis management and event accessibility. The ASAE and DI teams are formalizing actionable elements of the agreement, but ASAE and DI will work toward the eventual development of guidelines for associations and destinations to consider around those prioritized topics.

“Industry collaboration is more important than ever to address the range of complex issues impacting the success of association meetings and events,” said ASAE President and CEO Michelle Mason, FASAE, CAE. “ASAE is excited to work with the DI team on issues that are keeping association event organizers and their destination partners awake at night, such as how to plan for the unexpected at large-scale events and how to make meetings and events accessible to all attendees. We want to stress too that this is not an exclusive partnership between ASAE and DI. We welcome participation from other industry organizations. The more we work together as an industry, the better informed and prepared our community will be.”

"We are thrilled to join forces with ASAE. This partnership marks a pivotal step in addressing critical issues like event crisis management and accessibility, ensuring a more resilient and inclusive future for the business events industry. Our combined expertise and resources are a testament to what can be achieved when industry leaders work together for a common cause, and we look forward to collaborating with other industry organizations to extend this work even further," added Don Welsh, President and CEO of Destinations International.

Mason and Welsh are eager to collaborate on overlapping issues of concern for association and destination leaders so that real progress can be made on the important issues of mitigating event crises and increasing event accessibility. “ASAE and DI have different but mutually dependent audiences, and they share the same goal of ensuring successful events,” Mason said.

Industry organizations interested in joining the ASAE-DI collaboration should contact Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE, ASAE’s vice president, international affairs, at ahissrich@asaecenter.org.

 

MEDIA CONTACT: ASAE: Chris Vest, CAE, cvest@asaecenter.org / DI: Gathan Borden, gborden@destinationsinternational.org

 

About ASAE

ASAE is a membership organization of more than 48,000 association executives and industry partners. Since it was established 100 years ago, its members have and continue to lead, manage, and work in or partner with organizations in more than a dozen association management disciplines, from executive management to finance to technology. With the support of the ASAE Research Foundation, a separate nonprofit entity, ASAE is the premier source of learning, knowledge, and future-oriented research for the association and nonprofit profession and provides resources, education, ideas, and advocacy to enhance the power and performance of the association and nonprofit community. Visit ASAE at www.asaecenter.org.

 

About Destinations International:

Destinations International is the world’s largest and most reliable resource for destination organizations. In short - DI educates, equips, and empowers our members to grow the success of their destinations and to excel professionally. Membership grants access to a wealth of important industry resources, educational opportunities, and exclusive benefits. For more information, visit www.destinationsinternational.org.