International Congresses held from 1957 to 2006 held in Japan Back >>> Japanese >>>
Kyoto International
Conference Hall (KICH, from 1966 to 2006) Federations
of International organizations Universal
membership organizations Inter-continental
membership organizations Regionally
defined membership organizations Organizations
emanating from places, persons, other bodies Organizations
having a special form, including foundations and
funds Internationally-oriented
organizations grounded in a particular country Inactive or
dissolved International organizations Recently
reported or proposed International organizations Religious
orders, fraternities, and secular institutes Autonomous
conference series Multilateral
treaties and agreements Untraceable(or
currently inactive non-conventional) body bilateral conference
series dissolve,
dormant commercial
enterprise foundation,
fund inter-governmental research
institute previously
international body, now national in scope individual
membership only no recent
information received(directly or indirectly) international
organization membership General
meeting of the international scientific organization where
the SCJ itself is a member. General
meeting of the international scientific organization where
sections or commissions of the SCJ have close
connections. General
meeting of the international scientific organization where
sections or commissions of the SCJ should have close
connections. Meeting of
subordinate body of the above international scientific
organization. Meeting
sponsored by international scientific organization where the
SCJ itself is a member. With SCJ
code No SCJ
code JNTO
(P.S.) NGO
(A.I) IGO
(A.I) (P.S.:Post-Survey
done in the next year)
(A.I.:
Annual Increased number of organizations)
Kyoto International Conference Center (ICC Kyoto, since 2007)
Backgrounds
Aim
Computerization of the International Congress Data started with the
computer that had been used for 1979 CIE (International Lighting
Commission) Kyoto. It was so called "office computer" which was
developed by the Maruzen Co. Ltd. using the Mitsubishi precision by
the name of the "Maruzen Micromate. The language was BAIL and
programs were developed by seminar students of Prof. Miyano of the
Kyoto Sangyo University. At first 2,000 data was the target.
As for input data, we used questionnaire for International
organizations and the International Congress Calendar issued by the
JNTO (Japan National Tourist Organization) that was established in
1959, however, the Convention Bureau in it started in 1965) As for
the conference history, we did not include them on the data but keep
on filling them in on the conference record card we had made so
far.
First step was to know each conference if it had already been held in
Japan or not, which led us to identify its international organization
and its counterpart in Japan. We went through individual data one by
one, however, you had to know where it should be located in the whole
picture. In other words, you would like to know the connections of
data among them and find out your consistent marketing method.
Data Input
We started to make conference cards of scientific
organizations according to the code of the directory of International
Scientific Organizations, 1970 edition of the Science Council of
Japan (SCJ), and the directory of Japanese Scientific Organizations,
1970 & 1976 edition issued by the secretariat of SCJ, in which
Japanese and English title, address and telephone number of each
organization, title and duration and number of participants of the
international conference held or to be held in Japan were filled. Out
of 1,175 international organizations on the directory, several
hundreds had been completed on the cards by that time.
We also had about 200 returned questionnaire survey from
international scientific organizations. Based on Congress Bulletin of
the ICCA (International Congress and Convention Association
established in 1964) we sent questionnaires to headquarters of those
international scientific organizations that had not have their
conferences in Japan yet or seemed to have possibilities to have
their next meetings in Japan in the future. As its distribution was
up to individual staff, we made a common file and about 200 data were
available for input. We started data input with these questionnaires
and followed the JNTO Congress Calendars since 1963.
However, there happened overlapping between the first 200 data and
those on the JNTO Congress Calendars. And because there were no
information on International organization of each meeting on the JNTO
Calendars, we suffered a lot with the identification of its
international organization, which was a big problem.
For this work, we used the directory of International Scientific
Organizations, 1979 edition of the SCJ. We tried this identification
one by one putting the SCJ organization code number on each meting in
the Calendar before the input. However, this was quite difficult for
us with no technical knowledge on this that might have caused miss
identification to a certain degree.
Other than the directory of International Scientific Organizations,
1979 edition of the SCJ, the directory of International Organizations
that Japan has joined, 1978 edition of JNTO was available.
Identification of the International Organization
We noticed that examining an international conference on this
process led us to examine its international organization, that was to
consult the UAI (Union des Associations Internationales) YEAR BOOK,
1974 edition. Collation of the congress data with organization code
number of the UAI YEAR BOOK and Head Office File No. of the ICCA
Congress Bulletins and the input work made us realize further
relation between international meetings and international
organizations. The perception that when an international organization
holds a meeting, it becomes an international meeting, came out very
fresh to us. Meeting is one of the basic activities of the
organization
Then we checked the conference data against the conference record
card and transcribed the history on the card, which meant the
collation with the ICCA Congress Bulletin or the UAI YEAR BOOK and
the JNTO Congress Calendar. We arranged the conference record cards
according to the first open date for updating.
This troublesome work was not so rewarding that immediately led us to
an actual sales..
The Maruzen Micromate was upgraded to the Micromate 2000, office
computer, in 1981. The language became Extended Basic. Mr. Fujiwara,
SE of the Maruzen Co., Ltd., was in charge of it. Data transfer
seemed to cause unexpected signal trouble in blank record and we
suffered a sorting error.
Identification of the Japanese counterpart
Though the directory of International Scientific
Organizations was useful, it was not satisfactory to deal with
rapidly increasing international scientific organizations in
medical field and so forth. When identifying those other than
scientific international organizations, there was no way but relying
on the UAI YEAR BOOK. To find Japanese counterparts, we used the
committee members lists of the Science Council of Japan, Dantai
Meikan (Organization Directory) by the Mikami Marketing Institute
Co., Ltd. <currently Siva Co. Ltd. > and the directory of
Medical Scientific Societies by the MICS Co., Ltd. Information on the
corresponding organization described in the questionnaire was also
useful.
After going through data on the JNTO International Congress Calendar,
we got back to the rest of organizations and their international
meetings of the directory of International Scientific Organizations
by the SCJ and finished them. Since then we have continued updating
them mainly according to the JNTO International Conference Calendar,
the ICCA Congress Bulletins, and the UAI Congress Calendar.
On Japanese characters
Because Micromate 2000 could not support Japanese characters,
we had to use word processor "the JDL Bunsaku" to make future
possible International Congress list of about 300 data according to
the first open date to include Japanese items. We included major
domestic scientific congresses on the JDL Bunsaku list, however, we
refrain from adding them on our International Congress list even if
there were a certain number of foreign participants. Though the
introduction of FACOM9450Σ, the Fujitsu office computer, in 1986,
which supported Japanese characters, seemed to be a solution to this
problem technically by adding corresponding Japanese items on the
record, replacing Roman alphabetical Japanese organization names.
adding Japanese congress titles was such a hard work as to review the
whole directory of International Scientific Organizations by the SCJ
again and update them one by one from the beginning to the end.
Computerization in the UAI
Change of organization codes of the UIA YEAR BOOK also gave
us hard work to update them. Rapidly increasing number of
international organizations and the change of their international
character brought them to adjust their section classification code
and to respond to the computerization of increasing data. The
computerization of the international organization data in the UAI
started in 1972, and the data were preserved and managed by an
outside company in Brussels in the form of the magnetic tape file,
and the updating work was continued in the UAI secretariat.
It was moved to a network in Britain in the middle of 1985, being
upgraded to Novell Netware 286 systems using MS-DOS 3.1 environment
and it is composed of 14 microcomputer workstations linked with
Corvus Omninet or Arcnet. The main disks are 291MB which has a fairly
large capacity. Application software is Revelation G, the Cosmos
(Seattle) Co. and for printout is used the laser printer of the
Hewlett Packard Co..
It was breathtaking when a huge code conversion table was sent from
the UAI due to a big rearrangement of section code in 1980, and we
had to do the converting job manually all one by one. 1981 version
(19th Edition) YEAR BOOK became a joint issue of the UAI and the ICC
(International Chamber of Commerce) and from 1983 version (20th
Edition), the editing work and publication of the YEAR BOOK was
entrusted to the K.G.Saur Verlag KG, specified issue company of the
IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations), and the
modification was made to the section code every year. Corresponding
the modifications not only took time but was so troublesome that not
a few could remain unrevised or miss-revised at that time.
ICCA computerization
Computerization of the ICCA Congress Bulletin seemed to start
in 1980, which was planned by Alwin Zecha in his final term of the
presidency, and succeeded by the next president, Enrst Stock.
Ms.Sherry Dean, the seminar coordinator with the ESOMAR (European
Society for Opinion and Marketing Research) was headhunted to the
information section of the CCA Head Office for this plan. The system
was developed with IBM-System 34, and was updated to IBM-System 38 in
1984, which could make on-demand pay conference information service
on the name of MMIS (Multinational Meeting Information Service). This
was the joint development of the IBM and the CEP Consultants and new
company, MMIS, BV was established to undertake this business in 1987
with Ms. Sherry Dean as the Managing Director. The number of data has
exceeded 10,000 in 1988.
We expanded our data capacity to 3000 in 1981, and to 4000 in 1988
and the numbers of data came to 3100 as of October, 1988.
Data
collection and its problem
JNTO
International Congress Calendar
JNTO's International Congress Calendar is usually compiled
and issued twice a year on February and July. It consists of the data
given by congress organizers themselves to the JNTO and mostly
reported by members of the JNTO with the questionnaire survey, which
was the only International Congress Calendar publicly made. Though a
big volume of JNTO annual statistics on International congresses held
in Japan was available next year, in which only Japanese title,
duration and venue were mentioned. And as the Japanese character was
not usable on computers at that time, it was not possible to add them
on our data. Consequently the issued JNTO International Congress
Calendar seemed to cover only major meetings, about 20 percent of the
whole data, which became good reasonable selection among them.
In 1980 when the administrative reform prevailed, the JNTO, an
external organization of Ministry of Transport, was not an exception
and had to cope with budget cuts. The JNTO managed to ask the member
private companies if they could afford a personnel to deal with the
Calendar. This apparently assumed the data leak to the company
providing a staff which was the problem. Organizers provide data
because the JNTO is the public sector of Ministry of Transport. In
1981 when the International Convention Business Association was
organized among members of the JNTO, the work was returned to the
JNTO business. (In 1985 the JNTO intended a tie-up with prefectural
Convention Bureaus in Japan and built up the Japan Convention
Promotion Council. In 1988 Ministry of Transport took initiative to
merge the International Convention Business Association and the Japan
Convention Promotion Council into the Japan Convention Promotion
Association, a foundation which was reformed in 1995 to the Japan
Congress Convention Bureau, a private sector.)
In the middle of the 1980s the JNTO started to sell a volume of
International Congress Calendar at a cost of 500 yen a copy. Hotels
were quite aware of the meeting markets and the related industries
followed. Surplus moneys were forwarded to invest hotel
constructions, which spread to local cities, and major local
governments launched projects on International Convention and
Exhibition Facilities and Convention Bureaus to invite International
Events. There came a time when you could sell or buy a list of
International Events.
This brought a rapid increase of International meeting data in JNTO
list. Members of the JNTO tried to increase the data held in their
own site or organized by themselves as PCOs, and the local convention
bureaus collected as much data as possible in their area and
submitted them to the JNTO. This obviously revitalized the role of
the JNTO as the center of congress data collection in Japan, however,
also caused inclusion of data which did not fill the criteria of
International meeting used in the UAI or the ICCA.
In 1979 version of the JNTO list, along with an organizer of a
meeting or its contact, the corresponding International Organization
was mentioned, which was epoch-making, however, it had ended in the
middle of 1980s when data made a rapid increase, which was really
disappointing. You should know about the international organization
of the international meeting when you would like to take part in the
meeting business.
Definition of International Congress
This is a contentious issue, however, there was a tacit
understanding that those meetings like top-level summit talks,
governmental negotiations, private companies meetings should be
excluded from the International Congress Calendar. Inter-governmental
meetings pursue their own national interests, and do not become
marketing targets for private sectors sales activities. Enterprises
pursue their own profits, and it is inadequate to deal with on the
same basis as association meetings where intercommunications of
members, exchanges of information and public disclosures are
critical. Thus the incentive meeting market has been separately
considered. In US they also separate the Corporate market and the
Association market and corporate overseas meetings are regarded as
the Offshore market.
In fact they were not clearly divided but blended together in the
list. Furthermore, the definition of "International" was vague in the
JNTO list. Meetings between two countries such as Japan-U.S. and
Japan-France, so forth were included in the international Congress
Calendar which was the Japanese characteristics as an island country.
They have taken it as an international meeting if there participated
a few foreigners from America or Europe in a meeting, and there was a
psychology that they wanted to increase the number of international
meetings in Japan.
In the UAI they do not regard it as international If the members of
at least three countries or more do not participate in a meeting.
This comes from European situation that several countries are
situated in the range of 500 km, which is quite different from in the
United States and Japan and it will be hard to agree with the
definition. Furthermore the definition is so Western Europe oriented
that European meeting are called international and the same criteria
meetings in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Oceania are called
regional meetings.
In the UAI, they classify a meeting according to the category of the
international organization that hold it. International Organizations
are usually classified into three categories; Inter-Governmental
Organizations (IGOs), International Non-Governmental (Non-Profit)
Organizations (INGOs) and Multinational Enterprises.
IGO is an organization which is established by an agreement of
parties of three countries or more. INGO (usually NGO) is an
organization which is established by representatives of three
countries or more, which is not a matter of any governmental
agreement but whether it represents 'three countries or more' is a
matter. Internationality of those organizations are classified into
the following types.
Further efforts are made to express the character of an international
organization that can not be described with the above
Internationality. The following characters are added to the
organization type above.
It will be a long and hard way for the UAI people to get through all
identifications giving individual code number.
Secretariat of the Science Council of Japan (SCJ)
We have done our work according to 1979 edition of the
directory of International Scientific Organizations issued by the SCJ
(oversea research section, scientific organization department ) 177
organizations were included in 1965 edition and, 995 organizations
were investigated in 1979 edition. You could not have done it without
these directories to input data systematically, however, as ten years
have passed since 1979 edition, the next edition is waited for.
The Science Council of Japan has national budgets to helps scientific
organizations holding International scientific meetings sharing a
certain amount of basic expenditures. The standard of the selection
is as follows.
An organizer can make an application 3 to 4 years prior to the
meeting. The application will be submitted to the International
Conference section of Research Division of the SCJ and passed to the
relative section chairman and discussed in the section meeting. To be
a winner you should have the influence on the section meeting. As the
result of discussions of the meetings were brought together as a
minute, you will be able to apply for the inspection.
International scientific meetings' data together with domestic ones
are compiled in a list by the International Iinformation section of
the SCJ Secretariat for distribution to the related organizations,
which I have seen for the first time in this autumn and wonder why we
have been out of it up to now.
The ICS issued the first conference magazine in Japan, Congress &
Convention, in 1987, in which not a few pages of the convention
calendar were included, and ranked next to the JNTO Calendar.
ICCA Congress Bulletins
They are sent to the members of the ICCA in every two weeks.
Questionaires are sometimes included in them asking members to fill
in meetings data of their own. These bulletins were computerized in
the 1980's, and it seemed to be more than 3000 data that had been
processed. As the meeting histories are on the bulletins we made the
questionnaire surveys according to the frequency of the conference
looking for the next possibility of the conference to be held in
Japan.
We sent the questionnaires to secretary generals of international
headquarters and got a considerable replies at that time, however,
quite a few data led us to the direct sales and most of them were
only filed on the desk. But it could tell us that there was no or
less or a little possibility to keep on the sales and as was already
mentioned that we started putting them in computer, it helped us to
develop our database.
About 30 ICCA Bulletins came every two weeks and if not coming for a
while, a certain volumes of them came together at once. Anyway
updating them was so annoying that you had to collate them by the
international organization of printed out data before you would use
your computer, because there was no such function as finding and
listing data on the display at that time. Also you could not collate
them by sorted meeting titles because they have Int Conf, Int Congr,
Int Symp, whatever in front of the title, which was like looking for
'Wally' in a picture. You had to count on your memories. The Fujitsu
9450Σ made it possible, however, the retrieval time was so long that
you would not be able to stand it.
The ICCA members had reached to 400 in 65 countries in 1987 and from
the business point of view, those meeting data which had more than
100 participants from at least four countries or more were picked up
and updated for bulletins. As for the data collection the ICCA seemed
to distribute questionnaires not only to the member but also to
international headquarters, conference organizers and also seemed to
refer meeting calendars of leading international organizations,
various meeting magazines and so forth.
After MMIS, the ICCA started so called tailor-made service that sells
print-out data or diskette data according to the member's request.
This seemed to be the response of the ICCA to the UAI that had
developed the computerization and the computer online service of the
YEAR BOOK and the International Congress Calendar.
On our database we made it accessible to both ICCA and UAI database
by putting ICCA Head Office File Number and UAI international
organization code number on our data item. This mutual access by ICCA
bulletin number and UAI organization code number will greatly help
both members of the ICCA and the UAI.
From the last meeting date and the frequency of the meeting, you will
know the next possible date of the meeting, so called first open date
(FOD) in the ICCA. If you know FOD of the meeting, it turns out the
next possibility only comes after that date. Sometimes there is a
mistake in those information and Europeans likely take Kyo-to as
To-kyo and we used to check ICCA data with UIA data. As we posted
meeting histories on ICCA Bulletins to our conference cards with our
own data number and SCJ code number, we filed them according to FOD.
About 300 major ones were updated.
However, there are persons who would rather like to make unsolicited
calls to professors of the Kyoto University and so forth than to take
time doing such a troublesome work. He that shoots oft at last shall
hit the mark. If you do not want such shooting, you had better make a
limited questionnaire survey in advance for targeting the call.
When you start with the response of the questionnaire, sometimes It
takes time reaching the right person on Japanese counterpart. In
Japan those who are good at foreign languages are likely to be
proposed for the office of the International organization and a
chairman or a secretary general of the organizing committee becomes
someone else. It will be difficult to find out who really has the
influence on the decision making. If you happen to contact someone in
rival or in question, you shall have to have a hard time. So the
correct information is very much appreciated and welcome.
UAI Congress Calendar
Though more than 14,000 international organization data
started to be computerized in 1972, It was in around 1980 and 1981
that the data access to external organizations was realized. The
unveiling was announced in Brussels in September in 1981. The theme
of the conference is THE ASSOCIATIONS-CONGRESSES DATA BANK. With the
cooperation of SLIGOS BENELUX, the highlight was the data online
services, if you wish it. It was updated in 1982 to Congress Calendar
"tailor-made" to your requirements either in a geographical and
chronological or sponsoring organization order, and in 1984 started
the sales of the List of International Organization Meetings: Past
& Future, 600 pages including more than 13,000 international
meeting data at the cost of US$350. The ICCA was stimulated to this
movement and started the development of MMIS.
The AIPC (Association Internationale des Palais des Congres:
inauguration in 1958) was also stimulated to this movement, and the
data exchange among member centers was tried. Mr. Jean Delobel,
secretary general of the Versailles Congress Center in 1980, was
eager to make it, however, it was impossible to make it something
like UAI or ICCA data, which unfortunately ended with his getting
through his term of office. (The AIPC headquarters is not permanent
but alternate by the member's mutual election.) There was rising
concerns for the conference data, and the PCVB (Philippines
Conventions and Visitors Bureau) was appealing to parties concerned
in the world, distributing the international conference list of the
country.
Major concern of the UAI is to understand and show the trend of
international organizations. They have especially considered about
the character and function of the NGOs, Non-Governmental
Organization, in which they have focused attention on the role that
could not be achieved by the Governmental Organizations or IGOs,
Inter-Governmental Organizations, pursuing national interests on
their top priority. Members of the UAI consist of mainly persons,
which does not seem to correspond to the necessity of International
Congress Calendar, however, supporting members such as the JNTO and
the KICH are included as organizations, International Congress
Calendar is indispensable source of information for members. It will
click if you think over the basic activities of International
Organizations such as holding various meetings, issuance of the
minutes and the collected papers, adoption of the recommendations and
so forth.
When a meeting is not covered by the ICCA bulletins, you can refer to
the UAI Congress Calendar or event history section on each
international organization in the YEAR BOOK. When a contact is a PCO
in the JNTO list, the organizers or committee members are often found
out in the UAI Congress Calendar, where at the same time you can get
the information on the corresponding International organization,
which is a great advantage.
Statistics and the definition of international organizations are
attached to the YEAR BOOK. You will understand there has been a
growth of international organizations behind the increase of
international meetings, which will be proved by the statistics. You
will also know that the number of headquarters of international
organizations the city has become a barometer of the
internationalization of the city and will be the outcome of its
policy, management and culture as an autonomous city.
The meeting industry has been regarded as investment and speculation
target, or advancement opportunities for young people and women these
days, however, the UAI never forget to basically consider the role
and function of international organizations reflecting the World War
I and II.
Other Sources
The weekly Medical Newspaper by the Igaku-Shoin Ltd., the
Biological Science News by the editorial committee in the Zoological
Society of Japan, the weekly Science Newspaper by the Kagaku
Shinbunsha Ltd., the Medical Society Directory by the Mikusu Ltd. are
available and the daily news papers and the posters of the university
campus are also sources. Academic journals are available but you may
be annoyed getting through the entry to the library of Kyoto
University, On the other hand, free inspection to the library of the
Department of Medicine is convenient. the procedure is annoyed though
each journal might be inspected. Academic journals in the Prefectural
Library are unexpectedly not many.
The first magazine that featured the articles on the meeting industry
might have been the monthly Hotel and Ryokan (Inn). However, it might
be the Congress & Convention issued by the ICS at that time that
could represent the industry.
The UAI issues a journal, the Transnational Association which was
previously titled as the International Association.
The ICCA doesn't have its own journal but make use of TW magazine
(TAGUNGS-WIRTSCHAFT Convention Industry, The international magazine
for fairs, meetings and incentives), and publish ICCA NEWS on it.
The journal of the AACVB (Asian Association of Convention and
Visitors Bureau) is the MICE ASIA, and the MICE
(Meetings/Incentives/Congress/Exhibitions) Communications, Ltd issues
it, and the chairman is Mr. Alwin Zecha, president of the ICCA in
late 70s. The ASIAN MEETINGS-Incentives & Exhibitions was the
predecessor of the MICE.
From US, the MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS, the SUCCESSFUL MEETING, the
MEDICAL MEETING, and the INTERNATIONAL HOTEL REVIEW are forwarded and
from Britain, CONFERENCES & EXHIBITION, from Italy, the
CONGRESSI, the European magazine for Congresses, Meetings &
Incentives, and the WORLD MEETING aiming the restoration of European
market and so forth are also sent to us.
They paid much attention to who would take a leading on the meeting
industry magazine in Japan and it might be the ICS with the Congress
& Convention. But volumes of translations of articles on
international tourism made by the Information and Research Department
of the Japan National Tourist Organization were something that should
be well remembered.
Database in Japan
It is DB-ICIS (Data Base-International Convention Information
System) that has appeared with the catchphrase of data base on
convention and its related information for the first time in Japan.
The Toyo Information Systems Co., Ltd, the inter group Co., Ltd. and
the Dick Co., Ltd have tied up and developed it, which mainly covers
meeting data and includes congress and exhibition facilities, hotels,
local, state and national information, and they are willing to get
wide participation, starting member recruitment since the end of
1987.
The meeting industry is traditionally regarded as an independent part
of the tourism industry, and the Ministry of Transport has had
jurisdiction at an administrative level in Japan. However, the
Ministry of International Trade and Industry also has launched this
field adopting the event industry as its slogan when they have
focused attentions on the convention industry as investment targets,
and on corporate incentive meetings as independent marketing targets
by economic magazines. Other Ministries and local governments have
also launched their own big events and conventions whatever to get
new industry segments or to reorganize their traditional industry
segments. The Japan National Tourist Organization is no more the only
public sector agency on meetings and conventions.
In March 1988 the Transportation Economy Research Foundation has
submitted a surveillance study concerning the strategy building up a
convention data base. According to the report, the Ministry of
Transport is planning to establish the IP Cooperation Association
(tentative) in the JNTO where a considerably big data base of 9000
data, 15 MB initially and 25,000 data, 40 MB will be scheduled. The
model is said to be the FAIRBASE by the Hannover Fairbase Database
Ltd. in West Germany and the MEETING-AGENDA developed by the
Materials Department of the French Atomic Energy Commission. The
chairman of the committee is Prof. Kato, dept of science and
technology, Sofia Univ. and committee members are from the JNTO, the
JTB, the JAL, the JCS, Hotels, Yokohama City Economic Affairs Bureau
and the Nikkei McGraw-Hill Ltd. and a specialist of the data base
from the data communication business headquarters of NTT is invited
to a working committee.
The Ministry of Transport would like to take the initiative with this
database scheme together with its international convention city plan,
however, as the examined input items are too many to be updated, the
data maintenance after initial data input could be the problem.
Public sector's data base on this kind had better be simple if it
fills the dictionary function.
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry is going to wrap up
reports of the Study Group on Events, a private advisory group of the
head of Industrial Policy Bureau, and to work out a policy to support
holding trade fairs and the exhibitions through the JETRO (Japan
External Trade Organization). Meetings are handled as a category of
events. The Ministry of Education is setting up the Science
Information Center in April in 1986, and its future plans include the
building up online science information data base connecting
universities around country.
A Corporate meetings data base could not be made according to
Japanese business customs. You will not be able to find out so-called
Meeting Planners in Japanese private companies who have mutual
information exchange over the framework of the company system. After
all, it has to be up to the statistical research survey by newspaper
companies, magazine publishing companies or research agencies.
A meeting database does not merely cover meeting information but does
cover the organization itself that holds the meeting as is described
above that considering a meeting is to consider the organizer or the
organization. A meeting database should have close connection to the
organization database.
A database which satisfies everything does not exist. You should make
your specific database, but never forget the mutual access each other
providing some easy mutual access code.
There is no constant association number given in the Japanese
Organization Directory. The SCJ (Science Council of Japan) fails to
update the directory of International Scientific Organizations and
the JNTO does not refer to the association number of the
International Organization provided by the UAI, making a directory of
Japanese corresponding Organization.
Data
statistics
Classification of data
The number of international meeting held in Japan is as of
November 18 in 1988. The classification is according to the directory
of International Scientific Organizations, 1979 edition, issued by
the JNTO. For errors on classification, I shall be to blam as I have
done it as an total amateur on that.
Total number of data is 2473, which is available for the moment
according to my arbitrary data collections. First of all I picked up
data which were related with the directory of International
Scientific Organizations, and classified them according to its own
classification code from A (Humanistic Studies) to G
(Inter-Governmental Organization) and then separate into major ones
and the others.
I picked up a regular scientific meeting or general assembly of the
organization as a major meeting and as for a committee meeting of an
organizations like IUPAC if a committee has its own secretariat and
holds regular meeting, I assumed it as a major one.
I also have included a regional meeting and executive committee
meeting and so forth of an umbrella organization.
I classified meetings other than those related to the directory of
International Scientific Organizations in the same categories on my
own, which included my arbitrary distinction. There were meetings
which could not be included in this classification and I added H
(Government and local government) and I (Enterprise) for them. Still
there were far more data which were left out of this statistics, this
might be a visible part of the whole picture.
In the UAI they start with separating them into NGO and IGO, and in
the US magazines, Association and Corporate.
Data listing
I have used two types of data listings. One is computer data
print out with meeting titles, contacts, organizers and so forth, and
the other is spreadsheets with organizations in which year and type
of the meeting held are filled manually.
I made two printed out lists. One was sorted according to the SCJ
organization code number and the other was sorted according to the
year that the meeting was held.
Printed out items were both English and Japanese title of the
meeting, corresponding International Organization, corresponding
Japanese Organization or contact person, year and duration of the
meeting, SCJ organization code number, UAI organization code number,
data number and so forth. For the reference purpose to save the
space, if an item consisted of three records, one record was cut out.
Also abbreviation was used, however, there was a difference between
the SCJ and the UAI. Prepositions were also cut out to shorten the
space and time. Data after 1989 are scheduled ones.
According to the whole list of the organizations attached to the
directory of International Organizations by the SCJ which were
arranged considering their correlations, I made a copy on a
spreadsheet filling out the year and the type of the meeting held
from 1963 to 1990. This is something we have done on paper since 1980
after the marketing and planning section started.
Evaluations of numbers of international meetings
Numbers of international meetings with no SCJ code marks a
rapid increase after 1985 on our data. You have to be well aware of
the fact that the numbers are not always up the reality but to
reports made. For reference I put the post survey numbers of meetings
by the JNTO for comparison in the table below.
The annual increased number of UAI international organizations was
another comparison. It marked rapid increases in the 1970's, which
have served as driving forces of an increase of international
meetings in the world.
In our data remarkable increases are found from 1964 to 1965, in 1970
and in 1985. 1964 was the year of the Tokyo Olympic Games, when the
Japanese travel ban was lifted and the Tokaido Shinkansen opened. In
1970 the EXPO '70 was held in Osaka and Japanese GNP was ranked as
No.2 in the world. In 1985 the SCIENCE EXPO was held in Tsukuba and
privatized and split up the New Den Den (Telecom company) and the JT
(Japan Tobacco company) started, and the 1986 summit conference of
leading industrially advanced nations was held in Tokyo. These are
all domestic factors of Japan.
Since the United Nations was inaugurated after the World War II in
1946, around 20 IGOs and 100 NGOs have been organized annually and in
late 1950s the annual increase of NGOs reached to one hundred and
several tens and in 1970 to 220, which was the peak, and in 1975 it
was 205 and after that it has been decreasing as is shown on the
table.
In late 1970s market researches on conventions started as a specific
market field, and in 1980s it came to be the word wide trend and data
banks on conventions appeared at the time. It might be because so
called office computers became available with reasonable price range
and simplified programming languages such as BASIC has been
developed.
Hiroyuki Ueda, Sales Div., in November, 1988