COMMUNITY PROSPERITY
CHANGING THE RECIPE FOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS EVENT
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM
Business trips are travel, too. Like holidays and vacations, you can travel responsibly and support the places you go. Even for short trips, there are many ways to help your host city. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, the catering for your meeting can support local food banks.
What's
changing
As of January, 2024, 15% of UK households were struggling with food insecurity. Inflation is making it harder for families and individuals to afford the same quantity and quality of food, and it is making it more challenging for food banks to afford to keep pace with the demand. Forward-thinking destinations are finding ways to extend the economic benefits of tourism to keeping underserved populations healthy.
What's already
possible
In Belfast, the need for food banks increased by 128% between 2016 and 2021. In partnership with organizations like The Trussell Trust and People’s Kitchen, Visit Belfast works directly with business event organizers to support local food banks in the city. Conferences and meetings, which bring hundreds of visitors to the city, offer an opportunity for hosts to give back. Many prioritize leaving a meaningful legacy, focusing their impact on the most vulnerable in the community.
Seizing
the opportunity
Visit Belfast’s “Changing the Menu. For Good” initiative encourages event venues, caterers and event organizers to raise money to fight food insecurity within the city. Event organizers can support local food banks and residents experiencing homelessness in a variety of ways: by donating the equivalent cost of a fourth meal course, contributing a proportion of catering costs, rounding up delegate or catering fees or by making a direct donation. Some venues have used the program as inspiration to enhance their own policies. For example, reducing food waste by serving whole fruit instead of cut fruit means that leftover produce has a longer shelf life and is easier to donate.
Standout
tactic
“Changing the Menu. For Good” goes beyond providing food and donations for those in need. During a Business Travel Association conference near the winter holidays, 150 delegates were encouraged to bring toys, which were then distributed to families in need at Christmastime. Around the same time, Visit Belfast and industry partners collaborated with a hotel to host a Christmas party to celebrate the work of food bank volunteers while simultaneously keeping the foodbank services operational with their own staff.
How
it helps
After a 6-month pilot project, the program expanded and is now in its third year. Since it launched in 2022, “Changing the Menu. For Good” has collected over 68,000 British pounds of cash donations and 6,000 British pounds of donated items for the city’s vulnerable populations. Nearly 25% of the city’s 215 conferences supported the program. Visit Belfast has spoken at events about how they set up the initiative and makes many of their program materials openly available. Similar projects have started in Durham and Cambridge.
Diving
deeper
How can the initiative maintain delegate and organizer engagement over time, given the potential for donor fatigue?
Increasing
impact
More than 6 billion people attended business events in 2023 in over 180 countries. Imagine the impact these events could have on communities if they all supported initiatives like “Changing the Menu. For Good.”
Traveling
better
Travel is inherently carbon intensive. Whether you are taking a mini-break or an annual vacation, consider ways to minimize your impact by staying longer in one place, reconsidering how you travel to the destination, and supporting businesses that are working to make their community and the world a better place.
