Frankfurt. The 2013 edition of IMEX came to a close today with IMEX Group Chairman, Ray Bloom, announcing several important new business achievements for the Frankfurt edition of the trade show. He announced that over 3900 hosted buyers from 75 countries had attended the show (amongst an overall visitor total of nearly 9000); 27% of them from long-haul markets, which is up from 25% in 2012. Day one had seen 3000 hosted buyers in the halls doing business with exhibitors – another increase on last year – with almost 3400 on day two. This is due to growing numbers of hosted buyers staying on at the show for between two and three days as part of the hosted buyer programme.
Speaking at the show’s closing press briefing, Bloom explained that changes to the design of the hosted buyer diaries, and the introduction of the single IMEX inbox for hosted buyers, had resulted in a new record of over 53,000 individual appointments between buyers and exhibitors – an increase of 33% on 2012.
Bloom also remarked on the success of Tuesday’s Politicians Forum which saw three tourism minsters attend for the first time (Mexico, South Africa and Egypt). He explained that such a high level of political interest in the Forum was a significant breakthrough and signalled a shift in the impact being made due to the industry’s ongoing advocacy efforts having strong momentum. He stated that 27 politicians have now signed the new Declaration of Support for the meetings industry and that IMEX would be pushing to reach 100 signatories by the end of 2012.
Summing up Bloom said he was extremely pleased with the way the 2013 show had gone. “From business appointment numbers, to hosted buyer growth and visitor numbers, this has been another strong year. Above all, we now have good technologies in place which support business growth for exhibitors and buyers and we look forward to building on this again in 2014.”
