IBTM World, a global event for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events), has surpassed its previous record for pre-arranged meetings — a total of 77,651 business meetings have been booked ahead of this year’s event, 5% up on last year’s total. There has also been a 9% increase year-on-year in the average number of appointments per exhibitor, up from 25.1 to 27.4 for 2018. Furthermore, latest figures show that 54 per cent of Hosted Buyers are participating in the Hosted Buyer programme for the first time this year, up 20 per cent on 2017; 50% of Hosted Buyers are completely new to the IBTM portfolio, an increase of 16% year-on-year; and 20% of Hosted Buyers are corporate buyers - 52% of whom are new to the IBTM portfolio.
Commenting on the news, David Thompson, Exhibition Director, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to announce such strong results for our customers. Not only does it point to this year’s event being another highly successful opportunity for exhibitors in terms of the volume of quality opportunities to do business with completely new contacts, but it’s also a real boost for our team who continue to work incredibly hard as we enter the final stages of preparation for next week’s event.”
Buyers from organisations, such as Moet Hennessy, Netflix, Bayer US, Diageo, Salesforce, Hewlett Packard, Amway, Toyota, Delta Air Lines - Worldwide Meetings and Events, Motorola, Peugeot Sport, MIA Comunicacion (WALMART), Inter IKEA, InfoWatch, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Procter & Gamble, Siemens Ltd. and SONY, will be present.
IBTM has also announced that in addition to a strong portfolio of returning brands, an exciting selection of first-time exhibitors will also be at the Barcelona event, including Tourism Promotion Board Philippines, Tourism New Zealand, Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism, SIXT GmbH & Co., Global Passenger Network, Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. and Rosewood Hong Kong will also be present.
In 2017, IBTM World welcomed almost 3,000 exhibiting companies from over 150 countries, 3,463 buyers and thousands of visitors for a packed schedule of meetings, networking and educational sessions. Over 74,000 pre-scheduled meetings between exhibitors and buyers were arranged over the three days.