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

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.

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.

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.