AIME Grows in Attendance and Exhibitors

Gary Tufel -- Tradeshow Week, 2/14/2005

New exhibitors will highlight Australia's largest exhibition industry event of the year, the AsiaPacific Incentives & Meetings Expo 2005, Feb. 22–23 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. At press time, 162 new exhibitors were signed up, with more expected.

With 800 exhibitors, including 19 from the United States and four from Canada, and total attendance projected at 2,800, AIME officials said they expect a record-breaking show.

Richard Yore, director of sales for the Vancouver Convention & Visitors Bureau, said his bureau has exhibited at AIME for several years. The Canadian Tourism Bureau's Sydney office provides booths and services for Canadian exhibitors. Vancouver aims to promote its gateway status, since it is much closer to Australia than other destinations in the Eastern portion of the country.

"We're not as much of an exhibition city as Las Vegas or Chicago, but we attract conferences, including medical events," Yore said. "Our convention center expansion will be complete in 2008, and we're hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics."

The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority will be making its third visit to AIME.

Michael O'Keefe, director of hotel, convention & meeting sales for the LVCVA, said of AIME, "It's an incentive show, but attendees include corporate meeting planners and others. Our Sydney and other international offices originally concentrated on driving tourism to Las Vegas, but are getting more into the meeting and tradeshow mode."

AIME has become a fundamental part of many international companies' and bureaus' marketing plans, said Rosemarie Sama, AIME exhibition manager. According to her, the organization's recent growth can easily be attributed to the success exhibitors at AIME 2004 had and to the continued growth in the Asia Pacific region, where the business events industry is strong with considerable investment in new convention and exhibition infrastructure.

AIME's largest exhibit will feature the combined Melbourne Convention & Visitors Bureau and Regional Victoria Conference Group, with 41 exhibitors spanning nearly 250 square meters (2,690 square feet). New Zealand's pavilion will cover the second-largest amount of space and have the country's biggest display at AIME ever, with 28 companies. Others taking significant amounts of space include Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, India, China, Korea and the Sultanate of Oman.

There are over 50 new exhibitors from Australia itself. The Sydney Convention & Visitors Bureau's 90 sq. m. (970 sq. ft.) exhibit stands more than 7 m. (77 ft.) tall, and is modeled after the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It will be home to 20 exhibitors this year.