CAPS-I & BONARD have launched a series of Virtual Trade Missions
Following the success of previous in-person trade missions, the Canadian Association of Public Schools – International (CAPS-I) has hosted a series of five Virtual Trade Missions with BONARD, a global leader in market research, strategic advisory and bespoke recruitment & networking events in the international education sector.
These virtual missions were designed exclusively for Canadian public schools and focused on South Korea, Japan, Middle East & North Africa, Turkey and Germany.
The events took place throughout January and February 2021 and enabled a cross-section of CAPS-I members (16–23 members per event) from across Canada to forge strategic partnerships with the owners and executives of 85 carefully selected, verified and trusted agencies during almost 1,500 pre-scheduled one-to-one video meetings.
CAPS-I and BONARD will continue this series on March 30–31, hosting further Virtual Missions focused on Chile and the surrounding LATAM markets, and again in May, with a focus on Taiwan.
“We’re proud of our longstanding partnership with BONARD and, with over 20 events under our belt together, we have a really common ground and understanding of planning and executing these events which make them seamless. Even through the transition to virtual offerings, it went incredibly smoothly and has proven to be just as successful as our many in-person offerings to date,” said Bonnie McKie, Executive Director of CAPS-I.
“Even through the transition to virtual offerings, it went incredibly smoothly and has proven to be just as successful as our many in-person offerings to date.”
Bonnie McKie
Executive Director, CAPS-I
Maria Gibalova, Head of Events & Solutions at BONARD, added that “we were proud to provide a continuous minute-by-minute strategic advisory on how to postpone, re-plan and switch the in-person missions to a virtual format while maintaining the quality, cost & time efficiency for which CAPS-I and BONARD’s missions have been renowned over the years.”
The BONARD Events Team, led by Lenka Kubasova, Senior Event Manager at BONARD, provided complete virtual event management services, including identifying and recruiting the right connections and right people for CAPS-I member schools to forge strategic partnerships and build a strong foundation for a post-Covid future.
“We were excited to learn from recent conversations with participants and initial feedback reports following the missions that everything went incredibly smoothly. All participants’ expectations were met and even exceeded, and having a pre-organized schedule and just clicking on the video was ‘fabulous’, according to their feedback,” adds Lenka.
Participating member schools and agencies also had the opportunity to attend numerous high-profile presentations and market briefing sessions given by the Canadian Trade Commissioners and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada officials to gather market intelligence and insights from particular source markets and learn about latest developments, trends and opportunities in the K-12 education sector in Canada.
For CAPS-I, ”the willingness of our Trade Commissioners to participate in our events by providing market briefings has been an integral part of the success of our trade missions. We are really grateful for their support and appreciative of their continued participation in all of our events across the globe,” adds Bonnie.
The events were proudly sponsored by guard.me International Insurance (all five missions), Canada Homestay Network (South Korea, Japan and Germany) and MLI Homestay (MENA).
You can watch highlights from our interview with Bonnie McKie here:
