The annual forum brings together representatives of national automobile clubs from all over the world to discuss mobility issues such as consumer protection and road safety. This year it will be chaired once again by Lauchlan McIntosh, who takes up the role for a fifth consecutive time.

McIntosh, Executive Director of the Australian Automobile Association and a member of the World Council for Mobility and the Automobile, is expecting another successful event.

He said: “There are well over a hundred clubs in over a hundred countries with over 100 million individual members. As they have similar interests there is great benefit in some of their staff meeting regularly to learn and share experiences.”

Motoring, touring and service clubs around the world, who are in the FIA, provide a wide range of services, from roadside repairs to travel assistance. Conference Week offers the opportunity for these clubs to meet together to exchange experiences and information which will enhance services to their members. In some cases the collective experience is used to assist in lobbying international organisations for change.

The event hosts numerous commissions, which meet to discuss contemporary automotive issues such as legal and consumer topics, road service technologies, travel and tourism products, marketing techniques, and a range of cooperative activities. More recently Conference Week has included meetings of the working groups of the FIA Foundation, a charitable organisation promoting road safety worldwide.

McIntosh commented: “The club staff gain from working together on a range of technical motoring and public policy issues. All clubs like to be able to offer their members the best and most up to date services, so these regular annual meetings are important.”

Away from the main conferences the delegates can benefit from interacting with each other and learning new solutions to similar problems experienced by automobile clubs all over the world.

“Every delegate will be looking for a new idea, a new concept or a new contact with someone from another club”, said McIntosh. “We have scheduled some interesting workshops which will allow delegates to participate, to be able to work directly with club and invited specialists.”

The cooperation between delegates is always a highlight of the four-day event. But McIntosh would like to see Conference Week facilitate more cooperation between the clubs during the rest of the year.

He said: “The event is very popular and successful now but we could always improve. I would like to involve more club staff in the planning and managing the events, to link to regional meetings and to enhance our links with the FIA Foundation.”

The four-day conference will be hosted by Germany’s Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil Club (ADAC), the biggest automobile club in Europe and the third biggest in the world. The club has 15.4 million members, 7,500 employees and 180 outlets throughout Germany. On the sporting side it organises 3,000 motor racing events, including Formula One’s European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

Cologne was chosen as the host city mainly because local organisers have experience of putting on such a large event, having hosted the FIA General Assembly in 2001.

Next year it is envisaged that the event will be held outside Europe for the first time. As McIntosh put it: “ADAC offered to host the event this year and we are very grateful for this. We have had conferences in many cities including Edinburgh, Sofia, Barcelona, Athens and Marseille to name a few. We are planning to hold a meeting out of Europe in the near future.”