The Industry Abroad: IMEX Picks Up Steam

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 4/18/2005

You might never have heard of IMEX, but the Frankfurt trade fair for the incentives, meetings and events business has got more than a few people talking — in both Europe and the United States.

This year's IMEX takes place April 19–21 in Hall 8 of Messe Frankfurt. Organizers are pleased with the location, because it signals a growth spurt for the 3-year-old show.

The 15,000 net square meter (161,459 net square foot) exhibition, to be occupied by the 2,700 exhibitors registered at press time, is expecting 6,500 buyers this year. Of those, about 3,000 will be part of IMEX's hosted buyer program, meaning they are invited by major hotel groups and other exhibitors, and their airfare and accommodations are picked up by the show.

The inaugural 2003 show spanned 10,500 net sq. m. (113,021 net sq. ft.) and drew 2,570 hosted and 3,054 general buyers. In other words, according to organizers' reports, the show has grown 45 percent in exhibit space and 17 percent in attendance in three years.

The hosted buyer program is key to the show's success, said Ray Bloom, IMEX chairman. International chains like Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Marriott Intl. use their European sales offices to identify VIP buyers and get their names to IMEX, which then plans their trips.

"The difference with the hosted buyers is that they stay much longer in Frankfurt, and much longer in the hall," Bloom said, "because everything is coordinated for them."

Bloom recognized the need for such an event from his decades of experience in the hospitality-exhibition business. He founded EIBTM (the Exhibition for the Incentive, Business Travel and Meetings Industry) in 1988. Bloom sold the rotating European show to Reed Exhibitions in 1997. Following a period of inactivity dictated by a non-compete clause, he said, and, "encouraged by some in the industry, I decided to come back in 1999."

He found that Germany had the third-largest outbound market for incentives, meetings and events (behind the United States and the United Kingdom), yet not a single tradeshow for that industry. Through his privately held Regent Exhibitions, he launched the IMEX brand.

Bloom's strategy was to anchor the show in Frankfurt, tapping that outbound market, at the same time he implemented the hosted buyer program, pulling qualified attendees from other markets.

The double-digit growth in the exhibition notwithstanding, there are other signs the strategy is working.

In February, two large international companies signed on for the hosted buyer program. Site selection and meeting services firm HelmsBriscoe, which touts 7,000 global clients, said it would bring 30 people to IMEX, including its CEO; and the Hotel Booking Agents Assn., a British group whose membership reportedly has a collective buying power of $500 million ($646 million), will be represented by 60 members.

Later that month, Washington, D.C.-based Intl. Assn. of Convention & Visitor Bureaus announced its endorsement of IMEX. As part of its sponsorship, the IACVB will organize a tour of Frankfurt for its executives and present a session in the conference program. The association will also promote IMEX to its members, many of whom have already signed up to attend, including CVBs in Atlanta, Las Vegas and New York.

IMEX already counts several North American associations among its supporters. Meeting Professionals Intl. (whose European division partners with IMEX on several programs for the exhibition) is working with IMEX to bring a version of its Future Leaders Forum to MPI's World Education Congress in Miami Beach this July 10–12. The original program gives 30 students from around the world scholarships to join about 120 of their German counterparts at IMEX in Frankfurt.

While the tourist offices, convention bureaus, convention centers, hotel companies and destination management companies that exhibit in IMEX focus mainly on meeting planners, incentive houses and event agencies, association planners do represent a "small and specific, but very important, category of buyer," Bloom said.

"There are few organizers of major international association meetings," he went on, "but convention centers and bureaus exist to attract them."

That was the motivation behind Assn. Day, held April 18, which precedes the official opening of IMEX and focuses on this overlapping sector of the business.

The American Society of Assn. Executives and the Intl. Assn. for Exhibition Management are among those sponsoring the day which, Bloom said, was the part of IMEX of most interest to tradeshow organizers.

Bloom said IAEM President Steven Hacker and COO Cathy Breden have been working with him since IMEX's inception and have been instrumental in developing Assn. Day.