IMEX 2005 sets sights on record attendance

This year's IMEX has grown significantly on 2004's show and will be visited by 3,000 hosted buyers from more than 50 world markets, including Asia, Australia, the US, Canada, the Middle East and South America. There will also be more than 2,500 exhibitors representing 130 countries. Of these, 203 exhibitors will be from Asia Pacific, despite the recent devastation caused by the tsunami on December 26, 2004. Sars had barely faded into the background and regional travel returned to something resembling normal when the tsunami struck. However the repair efforts have been undeniably superb thanks to the international community's unconditional support. Sri Lanka and Thailand have long since returned to promoting themselves as viable destinations. Taiwan will be one of this year's exhibitors — its first attendance at IMEX. It joins Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor), which is the beneficiary of IMEX's generous wild-card system that allows a small group of up-and-coming destinations to exhibit for free. Pau in southwest France and Cameroon in Africa are the other two wild-card recipients. To qualify, destinations must never have exhibited at a major meetings and incentive travel trade fair before. They must also demonstrate the potential, ambition and infrastructure to establish themselves within the worldwide sector as a leading destination of the future. More than 250 association buyers are scheduled to attend this year's Association Day, which gives exhibitors who are members of participating associations the opportunity to meet key buyers before IMEX officially begins. Last year's event was was hugely successful. Topics of this year's sessions will include 'Negotiating with Hotels and Congress Centres', 'Membership Recruitment and Retention' and 'Effective Online Community Building'. The venue for IMEX 2005 is Hall 8, Messe Frankfurt's largest single-floor hall. Frankfurt's role as a major transport hub and exhibitions centre has helped IMEX to quickly become accepted as a major CEI trade show."Every sector of the show has increased in size on last year and our hosted buyer programme is on track," said Ray Bloom, chairman of IMEX. Fruitful business Bloom said that basing IMEX in Frankfurt provides exhibitors with the best of both worlds. "We have the benefit of running the biggest hosted-buyer programme in world together with the offer of access to the German corporate market." Direct access to this market for some countries cannot be overstated. "Last year's IMEX was very fruitful in terms of business," said Malinee Kitaphanich, director of corporate meetings and incentives, Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau. "The German market is very important as it is the number one market in Thailand." Vipula Wanigasekera of the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) agreed. "The Germans are a prominent generator of incentives for us," he said. Meanwhile Vietnam is also trying to get itself a bigger share of the German CEI market. "We consider the German-speaking market a main target for the next few years," said Nguyen Thanh Luu, MICE Manager of Saigontourist Travel Service. He added: "Not many Germans know about our country, therefore we really need help to promote it. It was good news for us last month when the director of TUI Travel came to Ho Chi Minh city to discuss future plans of tourism." However not all exhibitors are attending IMEX 2005 with the German market in mind. "The German corporate market is lucrative, but our main interest is in the European associations market," said Leigh Harry, CEO of Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre. Full force Many countries attending IMEX 2005 intend to build on the success of last year's show. "While the quality of the hosted buyers wasn't exceptional [in 2004], our members were quite satisfied with the overall show and generated a few good leads," said Wanigasekera. Sri Lanka will again be in full force at IMEX 2005, an encouraging sign for the country's CEI industry which is still dealing with the aftermath of last year's tsunami. This year the SLCB is pushing the message 'Welcome back to Sri Lanka — We are ready for business'. Thailand also did well last year. "Our overall experience was quite positive," said Malinee. "We met a lot of good buyers who were serious about business. Essentially, that's why we're returning." Vietnam is the up-and-coming CEI destination that hopes to one day emulate the successes of countries such as Thailand. "We had a busy schedule last year and came up with a good result," says Nguyen. "Half of the buyers we spoke to came back to us, with big and small groups, to visit Vietnam." Indonesia too has faced its share of regional problems but is upbeat about its expectations of IMEX. "We did not receive anything positive from the first two shows we attended," conceded Indra Sukirno, executive director of the Jakarta Convention Bureau (JCB). "However we have taken a long-term view to the exhibition because maybe the buyers don't have any potential business in the near future. "It's difficult to look at IMEX in terms of year to year. We see it as a long-term investment." On a positive note, Sukirno said that this year the JCB has managed to convince more exhibitors to attend IMEX. "Accordingly, we have now redirected our image to become the face of Indonesia rather than just Jakarta, so I hope we will get more potential business," she said. Sukirno said one Japanese corporation has already booked an exhibition in Indonesia for October. More than 3,000 exhibitors from eight countries are expected to attend and Sukirno estimates that it will generate US$15 million for the Indonesian economy. According to Bloom, one of this year's IMEX highlights will be the attendance of Roger Helms and Bill Briscoe, leaders of US-based HelmsBriscoe, one of the world's largest conference organisers. "These are the types of key people our exhibitors want to meet," said Bloom. Meeting Professionals International (MPI) from the US will also hold their first ever international meeting at IMEX 2005.