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Forum Discussion at the IELA Congress & Partnering Event in Prague

September 7, 2017

The 2017 ILEA edition of the must attend industry event held recently attracted a record of 400 delegates from 58 countries to Prague, underlining its position as source of knowledge and important networking platform of the Exhibition & Event Logistics Industry.

The International Exhibition Logistics Association membership got together to shape the association’s future actively as well as to discuss IELA´s priorities for 2017 and 2018, giving way to new ideas to further develop members’ benefits and enhance business opportunities. This concept increased the IELA Congress attendance by 5%, which proves the importance of face-to-face contacts. The total number of 4.678 pre-arranged meetings at both events reached a historical momentum with a total growth of 29,5% in comparison to 2016.

IELA FORUM 2017

The Prague Congress gave a new impulse of how to overcome the challenges in the Service sector. The theme ON THE THRESHOLD OF A NEW AGE reflects the elemental role of Service in the lives of billions of exhibitors, visitors and organizers around the world. The high class speaker line-up gave insights about a range of major new initiatives and cutting-edge approaches, which will define the direction of the Exhibition Industry Eco system over the coming years.

All industry actors, venue operators, organizers, freight forwarders and stand constructors are responsible to seek, to encourage and share best practices to enhance SERVICE in the Exhibition Industry. Input and insight was given by the keynote speaker René Boender and renowned industry players representing the cross-section of the exhibition industry:

IAEE – David Dubois
UFI – Kai Hattendor
ITE India – Udo Schürtzmann
Czarnowski GmbH – Torsten Heinze
WZF GmbH – Dr. Rowena Arzt

IELA’s 2016 Award Winners Honored for Their Outstanding Performance:

“Our congratulations to all 2016 BEST AGENT Winners! The IELA Awards truly showcase those companies and individuals that are driving excellence, improving standards within the Industry. We thank all of our members for participating at the IELA STANDARD OF PERFORMANCE SURVEY, analyzing all partners they have worked with last year. The Winners were the best rated companies out of the Survey, the unique tool that benchmarks our member’s performance,” said Mariane Ewbank, IELA’s Chairwoman.

TOP 3 BEST DOMESTIC AGENTS 2016:

1st Place: ELF Shipping LLC, UAE; 2nd Place: La Rouxnelle Logistics & Consulting, South Africa; 3rd Place: JES Logistics Ltd., Hong Kong

TOP 3 BEST EXPORT AGENT 2016:

1st Place: Interflow Logistics Ltd., Ireland; 2nd Place: WEL World Exhibition Logistics, France; 3rd Place: BTG Suisse Ltd., Switzerland

BEST STUDENT AWARD 2017:

Shannon Trotter from TWI Group Inc. (Canada) was honored for her astonishing performance at this year’s IELA Winter Seminar.

Heartfelt thanks go out to CENTRUMSPED s.r.o. for its support in hosting this year’s IELA Congress – it was a great success. Thanks also go to all of the sponsors for making this record breaking Congress possible.

2017 Testimonials:

Carley Jones, Masterpiece Ltd, USA

“We left the conference feeling motivated, empowered and extremely grateful for the opportunity and experience. IELA provides a platform or talented individuals to come together and collaborate on industry changes, as well as individual prospects in a way that is unlike any other conference I’ve attended. This industry is constantly changing, companies can quickly become irrelevant if we are not continuing to push the envelope and capitalizing on the changes. We are constantly trying to expand our knowledge base to stay at the top of our game.
The Masterpiece family is looking forward to the new possibilities over the course of the year and reconnecting with new and old partners as a host in 2018 San Francisco congress!”

Tania Khodayar, Transit Air Cargo Inc., USA

“I enjoy being an IELA member because it is a community, a family. The organisation brings together a lot of professionals that have many ideas and years of knowledge and experience that they could share and benefit, what we do! IELA is a freat group of people to be associated with and I love what it stands for!
I feel the changes that IELA is striving to make for the industry, will portray their members and the organisation as pinoeers of new innovations for the Events/Exhibition World. IELA can be a big influence in the logistic-events-industry and become a brand.”

Kamran Emrani, TRCL- Raksh Co. Ltd, Iran

“Firstly we would like to thank everone involved for arranging such a fantastic and professional event in Prague! The enthusiastic presence of the IELA membership was impressive at this marvellous event.
It was a great pleasure to take part and we will surely participate in the next events.”

Benjamin Chen, Liaoning Air Sea Worldwide Logistics Ltd, P.R. China

“Before we joined IELA our customers were mostly from the local market, with the membership and mainly the Networking we learned a lot and build new relationships all over the world.”

Felix Sadenwasser, Swiss Expo Logistics AG, Switzerland

“For us it is important to be an IELA member, because we get promoted a lot.
Furthermore the different Events (Operations Summit, Winter Seminar, Congress) are adapting perfectly to diversity of qualification in our team. There is something for everybody.”

And last but not least: it makes me happy to meet old friends and new partners every year.”

Eve Novikova, Caspian Freight Services LLC, Azerbaijan

“I believe with the meetings such as IELA Congress you get out as much as you put in. It works for me very well. It is a great place to meet all the agents we work together and go through any issues and an future business. It is always interesting to listen to the speakers and find out more about the latest industry news from our client’s perspective.”