Revenue-generating activities
In 2021, Ancillary Revenue Generation Fund (ARGF) revenue-generating activities successfully met obligations to support contributions to the Regular Programme Budget and the funding of posts throughout the Organization.
Printing and distribution services
The cancellation of in-person events and classroom training sessions impacted the volume of printed and distributed training materials, which represent 30 to 35 per cent of external revenues. Cost-reduction measures including waste recycling, inventory reduction, staff reduction and deferred equipment acquisition were implemented to mitigate revenue losses. All ICAO publications were printed in-house to reduce external printing costs.
Publications and digital content sales
Despite slower sales than usual as a result of COVID-19, the sale of ICAO publications achieved the 2021 budgeted surplus target. Revenue from the sale of digital publications continued to grow, accounting for approximately 25 per cent of publications sales in 2021.
Events
Over 90 per cent of projected revenues were lost due to the cancellation of all in-person events and the transition to a virtual model. While revenues from virtual events doubled compared to 2020, they were still far below the costs incurred for these activities.
Licensing
Sales efforts were shifted to products and services such as data licensing. As a result, licensing revenues exceeded budgeted targets. All existing licensing agreements were maintained, and in some cases expanded, in 2021. Improvements were made to digital tools such as application programming interface access to ICAO data.
New products
ICAO TV continued to be a linchpin of ICAO’s outreach to Member States and aviation stakeholders, providing access to event and webinar content live and on-demand. In 2021, the number of subscribers more than doubled to over 24 000. The site attracted 73 756 unique users from a total of 230 countries and territories. In the ICAO TV content library, 295 videos were added, including videos for ICAO events, webinars, and videos and content from third parties such as the ALICANTO university network.
Marketing of ICAO products and services
The new email marketing platform deployed in 2020 continued to expand ICAO’s customer outreach with over 112 500 newsletter subscribers. During 2021, a total of 215 newsletters or marketing emails were sent out, promoting ICAO virtual events, webinars, products and publications.
