A real experience. With its theme of “Imagination”, IMEX pushed the boundaries, offering 8,828 trade visitors from 98 countries fresh experiences and plenty of new things to discover. 4,500 exhibitors from 172 countries appreciated the fact that 71 per cent of the 69,000 appointments arranged in advance resulted in concrete enquiries.

“We have to constantly keep developing. A pure trade show is no longer enough,” said IMEX chairman Ray Bloom. In addition to EduMonday the day before the fair, which offered valuable specialist knowledge in a variety of formats, Hall 9 served as an interactive learning and experience lab during the three days of the show. Visitors were able to try out new technologies themselves in the new Discovery Zone or test their own creativity.

“Imagination is a human superpower; it cannot be automated,” asserted IMEX CEO Carina Bauer. In addition to providing inspiring creative experiences, Hall 9 also plenty of educational content at the Inspiration Hub. The workshops “#Hacks for your event projects”, run by Colja Dams, CEO of the Vok Dams Group, and “Erfolgsfaktor Teilnehmer-Experience” (“The participant experience as a success factor”), run by the German Convention Bureau (GCB) and the campfire session on event budgets were all very popular. The whole range of current industry knowledge was covered with 250 different events.

In Hall 8, exhibitors stayed with the theme of imagination and used their stands to showcase regional meeting cultures. Many of the stands bore the new Imex sustainability seal. Visitors were able to create scents at the Italy stand, experience Thai kickboxing at the Thailand stand or take away a permanent souvenir in the form of a Maori tattoo at the New Zealand stand. Storytelling accompanied the abundance of information, which was a testament to the industry’s growth. Only the Sri Lanka stand, empty four weeks after the terrorist attack there, gave pause for thought amid the euphoria.

New convention centres are opening all over the world. MEETT in Toulouse will offer a capacity of 10,000 when it opens in June 2020, and the city is drawing on its strength in the aerospace sector to host Aeromart Toulouse in 2020. The 4,000-capacity Ras Al Kaimah Convention Centre, which opened in April 2019, was hoping for bookings at Imex and also expects to benefit from the Expo effect in nearby Dubai. The ambitious emirate intends to reinvent itself once more with the World Expo 2020 and is also setting new standards in terms of sustainability with a spectacular themed world and a slogan of “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”.

Abu Dhabi, the largest of the emirates, is also promoting sustainability with its annual Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. “We are very proud to be hosting the World Energy Conference in September 2019. As a result of close cooperation with the World Energy Council in London, the first World Energy Conference to be held in the Middle East will also be the largest so far,” explains Mubarak Hamad Al Shamsi, Director of the Abu Dhabi Convention & Exhibition Bureau. The Abu Dhabi Advantage Plus scheme provides incentives to make bookings.

Discounts for international planners are part of the strategy of many CVBs, particularly those in long-haul destinations. Malaysia is offering the Malaysia Twin Deal as part of its current “Malaysia Like Never Before” campaign, while the Thailand Convention Bureau (TCEB) has launched a campaign entitled “Redefining Your Business Events”, which also includes a discount scheme. The third Thailand Incentive & Meeting Exchange took place in Bangkok from 11 to 15 June 2019 and was aimed at planners from outside Asia for the first time.

IMEX Chairman Ray Bloom has announced that Africa, which appeared at the show in greater force than ever before in 2019, will be given more space in future. This follows on from IMEX’s recently announced commitment to diversity and inclusion, which visitors to the show also noticed in the gender-neutral toilet signs. While exhibitors registered fairly moderate numbers of visitors on the Tuesday of the show, Wednesday and Thursday were consistently busy. “IMEX is quite clearly a four-day event,” said Bloom. The next IMEX Frankfurt is taking place from 12 to 14 May 2020.