HSMAI Ready for a Long Beach Break

By Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 4/19/2004

After seven years in San Jose, Calif., the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Assn. Intl. is looking for a brief change of scenery.

Its Affordable Meetings Westwill be held at the Long Beach Convention Center June 9-10. The show is expected to feature some 260 exhibitors and attract approximately 800 attendees.

In 2005, the show will return to the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, where it has been held since its inception in 1997. Lori Robinson, group show manager for George Little Management, said the one-year move would enable the show to introduce itself to a new audience, since Southern California has a large concentration of meeting planners. "Long Beach in particular has been a destination that our audience has expressed an interest in for several years," Robinson said. "How-ever, the move to Long Beach will attract many new attendees who did not go in the past, whether due to budgets or time out of the office."

GLM isn't afraid of losing attendees either, since its research showed that the event attracts meeting planners throughout the West Coast, and San Jose participants were perfectly willing to go to Long Beach.

In 2002, AM West attracted 805 attendees and 266 exhibitors; in 2003, there were 711 attendees and 240 exhibitors. In previous years, the event had sold out its space at McEnery with 299 booths in 23,920 net square feet.

Still, the size of each facility or the show's growth was not a factor in the move, Robinson added.