Skift Meetings had the opportunity to speak with Panos Tzivanidis, Director of Corporate Events and Services at the International Olympic Committee.
Zivanidis and his team are responsible for all events organized by the IOC around the world, as well as all accommodation needs, travel and certification for the Games.
What lessons did you learn from the Paris Olympics that might be of interest to event planners?
One of the most important things is to understand cultural differences when doing business, especially over such a long period of time. Typically in the past, your preparation time was one to two years before the event. Now sometimes you have to deliver within six months. So, during this planning stage, you can learn a little bit about the culture. But you won’t spend much time there.
When you talk about the Olympics, you spend six to seven years planning the event, so you really understand the ins and outs of cultural differences and sometimes even the pros and cons.
In France, it’s interesting that there are some stereotypes about the way the French do business. For example, when you get to know them, you understand that they are more interested in legacy and doing the right thing than just a business approach.
It’s really important to learn this because that’s what we’re trying to achieve through the Games, with legacy and sustainability, with all the approaches that we’re taking with diversity and inclusion. In Paris, we successfully completed a gender-balanced competition for the first time.
How important is data?
Providing historical data to hoteliers is extremely important as it is the only way they can understand the true impact of the event on their city. Sometimes they are surprising or unpleasant because the event lasts three to four weeks. That doesn’t mean hotels will be full in three to four weeks.
Safety is the focus of the Olympic Games. Can you explain it?
Paris handled it extremely well, liaising with local authorities, creating a safe environment and being able to promote a safe environment. When event planners enter a city, they should spend more time communicating with authorities to spread the word that the city values everyone’s safety and well-being.
You have to have the power to be present because safety begins with perception. All countries are behind the Olympic Games. This is a huge mechanism. There is cooperation and collaboration between many different cities in terms of intelligence, exchange of ideas and past experience. Therefore, the entire machine comes together to create a safe environment.
How important is it to have a contingency plan in place, especially given the continued rain during the opening ceremony?
This is the first time the opening ceremony is open to the public. The original idea was to stage the opening ceremony across many kilometers in many different locations and areas of the city, which was a huge challenge and an amazing idea.
My team will not be handling all aspects of the opening ceremony because this is actually the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee. We deal with the Olympic family, dignitaries, VIPs, sponsors, corporate clients. When we were informed of the possibility of rain, we provided necessary protective measures.
But we are having rain. It’s very complicated. We had to provide ponchos, security and a reception area to keep people warm if they wanted some towels, classic stuff. But to my surprise, almost no one left, which speaks to the power of the Olympics and the opening ceremony. I join all the heads of state wearing capes in taking advantage of this unique moment.
The Paris Olympics are different from other Olympics. Did you throw away the script on purpose?
We want to create new possibilities for the organizing committee. The venues chosen in Paris are very unique, they project the image of the city and underline the Parisian brand.
What is one of your most memorable moments?
We are actively involved in planning a dinner for heads of state at the Louvre on the eve of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics. A once-in-a-lifetime event, 70 heads of state and 400 guests dined under the Louvre’s iconic pyramid.
Sustainable development is an important part of the Paris Olympics. You set your carbon emissions target from the start. Have you reached your goal?
Yes, we do, and Paris is doing a great job of being sustainable in every aspect. They reuse venues and will not build any new permanent venues unless there are strategic and legacy pieces. They did build the swimming pool, but not the other grounds. Some of the temporary structures were later reused and repurposed.
The IOC is focused on sustainability, one of the pillars of the 2020+5 Agenda, and our goal is to reduce emissions by 50%. Furthermore, especially for our institutional activities, we are fully compliant with ISO 20121 standards. In addition to this, as an organization we have a CO2 emissions budget for each department.
Therefore, each department not only has a financial budget, but also an emissions budget that must be managed. The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles. Moving 10 of our employees from Switzerland to Los Angeles was no small matter.
We need to optimize these trips and make sure we don’t do two or three trips a year. Maybe we will do one long trip and the others will be virtual meetings. If we do need to make multiple trips, we will have to send fewer people.
We’ve also created our own forests in three regions in Africa, so whenever we need to offset, we offset in our own forests.
