IMEX Group’s second international show in Las Vegas bigger than first year

In a sold-out show at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, IMEX Group made its second-ever U.S. appearance this week.

The international show for incentive travel, events and meetings took over the 170,000-square-foot exhibit space at Sands, bringing 2,430 exhibiting companies to Las Vegas.

Exhibitors are up 29 percent this year from 2011, and include a mix of country-specific destination pavilions such as Germany, Italy and Greece, paired with hotel and meetings groups.

"We have grown enormously since last year, and we're very pleased about that," said Carina Bauer, CEO of IMEX Group.

IMEX America is based around a hosted-buyer program, through which select attendees are invited to the show by IMEX Group. The 2,400 hosted buyers who attended this year received all-expense paid trips to the show. Of that total, 80 percent are from the U.S., with the other 20 percent, or 480 people, traveling internationally. The 2012 show saw a 20 percent increase in hosted buyers attendance from 2011.

Aside from the hosted buyers, IMEX Group estimated that between 1,700 and 2,000 members of the travel and meetings trade attended this year, bringing the 2012 total attendance to between 4,100 and 4,400.

As of the week before the show, 35,000 appointments already were booked between attendees and exhibitors. That's a little more than 14 appointments per company in attendance.

"From our exhibitor's point of view, the business opportunity IMEX presents is most important," Bauer said.

mexico visitor counts increasing

With 920 meetings booked at IMEX America, Mexico came to play. The Mexico Pavilion included booths featuring 64 tourism board and meeting industry partners, all trying to capitalize on the $18.1 billion industry in Mexico.

In 2011, the country attracted a record-breaking number of travelers, with more than 23.4 million international tourists. Meetings and incentives tourism represents 1.4 percent of Mexico's national GDP.

"IMEX is one of the most important meeting and conventions that the tourism industry has," said Gerardo Llanes, chief marketing officer of the Mexico Tourism Board.

Visitation to Mexico is up 6 percent year-to-date over 2011, and Llanes said it probably will end up 7 percent over 2011's total by Dec. 31.

On average, visitors to Mexico spend about $1,000 for a seven-day stay, and many travelers aren't just looking for beach time after arriving.

"Many visitors now don't want to spend seven days laying down on the beach," Llanes said. "They're looking for cultural experiences like learning a new language, learning local arts and crafts, spending time with the locals. It's becoming more experiential."

Mexico uses its close geographical proximity to market itself to a U.S. audience, as well as its "Mexico, the place you thought you knew" slogan, which Llanes said highlights the diversity of the country.

"We're very aggressive with our marketing efforts, especially with North America," Llanes said.

germany emphasizes infrastructure

And while Mexico capitalizes on its natural surroundings, Germany tries to highlight its transportation infrastructure.

"Seamless mobility is one of the core benefits Germany offers to business travelers," said Matthias Schultze, managing director of the German Convention Bureau. "Further, leading German travel providers such as Lufthansa and the Deutsche Bahn provide customized solutions to the meetings industry, making work travel to and within Germany increasingly easy and value-driven."

Germany hosted 2.72 million events in 2011, up 4.5 percent from 2010. The country's convention bureau is comprised of 200 members including hotels, convention centers and service providers of the German meetings and conventions industry.

For the past 10 years, IMEX has been held in Frankfurt, Germany, and is the largest show in the market. The American expansion of the show came as the group "wanted to create a global marketplace in the U.S.," Bauer said.

"It really has become, very quickly, what people refer to as the go-to show in the industry," she explained.

By the destinations in attendance, one might ascertain the same thing. On the show floor, Australia, Ireland, Dubai, Japan, China and countless other countries had large-scale booths promoting their destinations.

"From our exhibitors' perspective, the U.S. meetings buying market is the biggest market in the world," Bauer said. "From the international perspective, before us, there was no opportunity at a large level to get in front of a U.S. buying market."

A study led by the U.S. Travel Association found that the U.S. industry is just less than $100 billion. Bauer said IMEX is working on global numbers, but they don't yet exist.

But, she said, "The U.S. market is by far the largest market globally."

The U.S. meetings industry directly supports 1.7 million jobs, $263 billion in spending, a $106 billion contribution to GDP, $60 billion in labor revenue, $14.3 billion in federal tax revenue and $11.3 billion in state and local tax revenue, according to the Economic Significance of Meetings to the U.S. Economy study conducted by PwC US.

Contact reporter Laura Carroll at lcarroll@review
journal.com or 702-380-4588.