Questex Launches Six New Shows
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 5/15/2006
A year after being formed, Questex Media Group is exploding with new products. The company plans to add 15 Web sites, six events and four magazines to its portfolio.
Covering the technology, travel, home entertainment and industrial categories, the products were devised with heavy input from customers. Some represent relaunches of previously canceled products, while others were designed with newly identified markets in mind.
"Our business plan was pretty straightforward," said President and CEO Kerry Gumas. "First was to complete our establishment as a standalone company. Second was putting in an aggressive launch and development program based on customer research and input. Third is to look for strategic acquisitions to help us grow. We're just working down that list."
Questex's new ECM West Conference & Expo is scheduled Nov. 7–9 at the San Jose (Calif.) McEnery Convention Center. AIIM, an association for enterprise content and document management professionals, is sponsoring the show. Questex also produces AIIM — The Enterprise Content Management Exposition & Conference each May.
Workplace Performance 2006, set for Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Convention Center Sept. 10–13, will focus on solutions to maximize business organizational performance. It will be supported by a Web site called Workforce Performance Newsline. A new Web site also will support the ICCM Conference & Expo for the call center industry.
With an estimated 20,000 travel agents now working from home, the time seemed ripe for the launch of Home-Based Travel Agent Magazine and its supporting Home-Based Travel Agent Expo & Conference, expected to draw 2,500 attendees to Las Vegas in December.
Questex has also teamed up with the Mexico Tourism Board and the Riviera Maya Tourism Promotion Board to produce the Mexico Luxury Travel Expo June 22–24 at the Aventura Spa Palace Hotel in Riviera Maya. The event is slated to include exhibits of upscale Mexican travel suppliers and conference material for U.S.-based travel agents.
An appointment-based event called Incentive Travel Exchange will match pre-qualified U.S. incentive buyers with top incentive travel suppliers. The exchange will be held June 26–28 at THE hotel at the Mandalay Bay Casino Resort.
The new Luxury Travel University Web site will be designed to provide agents with information about resorts and destinations.
Gumas said interviews of nearly 800 customers, advertisers and exhibitors helped determine what types of products they needed. Questex has also implemented a system to develop new products.
"We want to make sure we're providing customers with a solution, not just giving customers something that is important to us," he said.
Existing staff will roll out the new products. "We're going through a whole cultural transformation. We really want to nurture and encourage people to be entrepreneurial," Gumas said. "You get people in a room and you get them excited, and it's amazing what can be done."
The company is launching On Demand Newsline to support the ON DEMAND Conference & Expo, and relaunching Sensorsmag.com to support the Sensors Conference & Expo and GPSWorld.com.
Questex is backed by the Audax Group, a 6-year-old private-equity firm. It was formed with the $185 million purchase of five Advanstar Communications divisions.
